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Control-M vs F5 BIG-IQ comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 13, 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

Control-M
Ranking in Process Automation
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
201
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (2nd), Workload Automation (1st), AI IT Support (1st)
F5 BIG-IQ
Ranking in Process Automation
26th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of Control-M is 3.3%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IQ is 0.9%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Control-M3.3%
F5 BIG-IQ0.9%
Other95.8%
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

RP
Batch Admin at NBC Universal
Brings data together from multiple platforms and optimizes cross-environment orchestration
The features of Control-M that I like the most include the ability to easily integrate or bring in different platforms into Control-M. For instance, AWS, mainframe, TWS, and something that's running on Autosys can all be brought into Control-M, converted to how Control-M runs it, and then the batch can be executed. This centralizes various applications in Control-M, which doesn't just have to handle batch processes, but also other tasks like reporting on required data. I find this functionality very useful and the setup is impressive, with more advancements yet to come. With Control-M, my company has achieved several measurable improvements since I started. The metrics indicate that the number of failures has dropped, and we have addressed the issue of excessive false alerts that I encountered when I joined. Previously, we received an overwhelming number of alerts daily, but now we manage to maintain that at a normalized level, perhaps around five to fifteen alerts, depending on running core batches and their setup.
Bikale Kassu - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager for Implementation and Administration at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Has faced challenges with visibility and technical support but allows centralized management of multiple sites
The configuration part is complex for F5 BIG-IQ. The simplicity and visibility part needs improvement. The dashboard, especially the analytics part, needs to be more simple and presentable. For the security part, it is difficult to present to our management, so we have to capture it and prepare manual reporting options rather than getting them directly from the system. The automation part in F5 BIG-IQ is limited; we are still using it only for load balancing for some services. We haven't integrated it with our Accesso or implemented any automation options. The setup process for F5 BIG-IQ would rate a five out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is highly stable. It is enterprise-grade software. Doing a job of 10,000 to 20,000 the solution is very stable."
"It's a user-friendly tool."
"They transitioned to Control-M based on its features related to SLA and workflow visibility, which significantly helped them."
"We now have a central dashboard to monitor the entire companies processes that is running."
"Control-M is excellent when it comes to building, scheduling, managing, and monitoring production workflows."
"Self Service for repeatable, low impact workload automation processes."
"The scalability of this solution is very good. The current solution is used wide spread in my company, but I don't have any plans to expand."
"Since our decision to migrate to Control-M, our customers have been very satisfied."
"Overall, this is a good solution and I would recommend it but they need better integration with VAS."
"The customer service is great."
"The backup, monitoring and logging are the best features."
"This solution is one of the finest in the industry."
"The best aspect of the solution is that we can have everything integrated with a rather large capacity in order to personalize and configure specific rules."
"The reporting feature is quite good."
"Their technical support is perfect, they were so supportive, the guys are great and they would do anything for you."
"F5 BIG-IQ has always provided us with great support."
 

Cons

"Pricing and licensing for Control-M are challenging aspects."
"The report form and display function are weak; they are not very powerful."
"We did encounter a few scalability issues. Sometimes, there are too many jobs in our environment on different servers, but that’s not the tool issue, we can simply increase the FS size."
"The structure between the Control-M/Server and Control-M/Agent could possibly be improved."
"Reporting in Control-M could use improvement."
"I would love to see REST API integration and more plugins for Google Cloud Platform in addition to AWS and Azure."
"Control-M SaaS is very expensive."
"A lot of businesses are using ServiceNow, which is another tool. I would like there to be some integration with ServiceNow or other third-party tools as well as have easily available integrations. Right now, we need to write scripts. Apart from that, if there were some integrations with an ITSM tool, then that would be good. Because at the end of the day, most of our clients are using different ITSM tools. I know that BMC Remedy is easy to integrate with Control-M. However, if there was availability for Jira as well as other ITSM and DevOps tools, that would be a good improvement."
"The shell, kernel, or Linux has something like a delay, especially with the Virtual Edition when you are trying to implement it in the cloud and you want to access it remotely with web management."
"Integration with VAS is something that they need to work on."
"For us, right now, F5 is too expensive."
"Sometimes the solution does not work."
"The shell, kernel, or Linux has something like a delay, especially with the Virtual Edition, when you are trying to implement it in the cloud and you want to access it remotely with web management. It would be great if they could improve their kernel. It was difficult for me, especially when I got started with BIG-IP. I was struggling to find which commands work with it. If you want to work with it, you have to be a Linux guy."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a complex solution, and it cannot manage everything related to BIG-IPs."
"You do need to have a good and solid background or foundation for networking and you need to understand how to configure F5 appliances in order to properly use it."
"For stability, F5 BIG-IQ rates a two or three because currently we are integrating it with our third party as a port forwarding service. We created many VIPs, but on average, weekly, we lose three to five connections, making the troubleshooting part a headache for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer is expensive."
"The solution is not cheap, it comes with quite a hefty price tag. Control-M is the market leader, but we still want the price to be as friendly as possible."
"The cost is basically $100 a job, give or take."
"There are human costs in addition to the standard pricing and licensing of this solution."
"This is an expensive product compared to other solutions, although I think that it is a good one. We are in a good position with licensing, as we can run 10,000 jobs."
"You're going to spend a lot of money upfront, but the benefits you're going to get out of it are going to quickly pay for it."
"It is a little bit expensive."
"Its pricing and licensing could be a little bit better. Based on my experience and discussions with other existing customers, everybody feels that the regular Managed File Transfer piece, not the enterprise one, is a little overpriced, especially for folks who already have licensed Advanced File Transfer. We understand that Advanced File Transfer is going away and is going to be the end of life, and there is some additional functionality built into MFT, but the additional functionality does not really correlate with the huge price increase over what we're paying for AFT already. This has actually driven a lot of people to look for alternative solutions."
"There is only one licensing fee for F5 BIG-IQ and everything is included in the price."
"F5 BIG-IQ is a cheap solution."
"I would like the product to be cheaper."
"Users have to pay an annual subscription fee for the solution's iSeries."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise159
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

How does Control-M compare with AutoSys Workload Automation?
Control-M acts as a single, centralized interface for monitoring and managing all batch processes, which is helpful because nothing gets left unattended since it is all visible in one place, and th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Control-M?
From what I know about pricing, I would probably put Control-M in the expensive category, but you do pay for what you get; you are paying for a premium product.
What needs improvement with Control-M?
We are not on the latest version of Control-M; we currently have version 20 and 21.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IQ?
From the pricing perspective, F5 BIG-IQ rates an eight out of ten as it's reasonably priced.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IQ?
The configuration part is complex for F5 BIG-IQ. The simplicity and visibility part needs improvement. The dashboard, especially the analytics part, needs to be more simple and presentable. For the...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IQ?
Currently for WAF, we are moving to another device, F5. We are not using Imperva. F5 BIG-IQ is the Web Application Firewall we're currently using, but regarding the Imperva products, now we are flo...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Control M, BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer, BMC Australia CTM
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The Bank of East Asia, LINE Bank Taiwan, Coop, Air Europa, Carrefour, Itau Unibanco, Snam, Embraer, ANZ Bank, EDP, Dominio's, Tampa General Hospital, W&W Informatik GmbH, Veterans General, Up Sí Vale, Sky Italia, REWE digital GmbH, Raymond James, Railinc, Navistar, Management Science Associates, Colruyt, CARFAX, Banpara, Aspiag Service, Amadeus, AG Insurance, ING Bank Slaski
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Control-M vs. F5 BIG-IQ and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,467 professionals have used our research since 2012.