Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Control-M vs Rocket Zena comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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

Control-M
Ranking in Workload Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (3rd), Managed File Transfer (MFT) (4th)
Rocket Zena
Ranking in Workload Automation
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of Control-M is 23.1%, down from 26.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocket Zena is 2.8%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Workload Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Pedro Fuentes - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective, excellent support, and centralized access and control
They have a department that handles requests for enhancements. I talked to Control-M guys back in October or November when they had a gathering here in Atlanta. We talked about not being able to go back in history in Helix Control-M for more than two weeks. We submitted a request for enhancement. They told us that they are working on it, and they are thinking of expanding that to 30 days. We would like to see it expand to 90 days, but they are working on it. In Control-M, we were able to go back 180 days, but that was on-prem. The storage of that data was on our own servers. We know that storage is money, and we do not expect them to store that much of the data, but at least 30 to 60 days seem proper.
JuanGonzalez6 - PeerSpot reviewer
A continuously evolving, stable solution, with responsive support
The visual whiteboard for design and execution included with the solution is very crucial to those who are new to Rocket Zena, especially so that the learning curve is minimized and they can focus on accomplishing the task. We process our system's payroll through Rocket Zena. The fact that it's a multi-process, multi-layered application, means that we can rely on the solution for kicking off processes, notifying user vendors of the steps, completions, error logging, and historic events from the previous run times. Rocket Zena's ability to automate jobs on the mainframe as a distribution workload automation solution is good. The solution continuously improves over time. We're eager to start the latest upgrade this coming year that'll put us on the cloud. Hopefully, this will improve the product even more. We can run things natively without the scheduler if needed. The solution working properly and up to date without the need for a mainframe scheduler is crucial. We use the solution to manage a few complex operational workflows end-to-end across multiple technology stacks. Rocket Zena does a great job of simplifying our cross-platform processes through automation. The solution helps speed operations up and keeps them automated allowing us to focus on other priorities. The solution helps increase our completion rates by working overnight to meet our SLAs. Rocket Zena completes 30 percent of our workload outside of our standard work hours. Rocket Zena's cross-platform job scheduling helped us save around 40 percent of programming time by automating repetitive tasks. We use the solution to transfer our current files and keep up with our infrastructure on a few automated jobs, such as refreshing our database which happens overnight. The solution helped free up around 15 percent of our engineer's time to focus on more value-added work.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The flexibility of Helix Control-M allows us to manage tasks efficiently. The user interface is comprehensive and lets me view all my jobs on one page, monitor everything, and access the job history."
"Technical support is very helpful and available 24/7."
"There is a batch monitoring tool called Batch Impact Manager, which proactively warns when processing is behind and SLAs are in jeopardy of being missed."
"Helix Control-M has contributed to the overall stability of our applications and improved user experience."
"Control-M has helped us resolve issues 70% to 80% faster. It provides us with alerts instead of having someone go to that particular server and check the logs to determine where the issue is. We can simply click on the alert information, then everything is in front of us. This provides us with time savings, human effort savings, and process savings."
"The scheduling and management were really good. Monitoring was also better. It had a good visual presentation. It showed me charts and all such things. It was really good on that side."
"The best feature is that we can automate everything. Moreover, we can access all the features through one dashboard, which is beneficial."
"It integrates seamlessly with other tools within our ecosystem."
"I have found the scheduling feature the most valuable. I can map dependencies by using ASG-Zena. It gives a nice, quick visualization as to where things are."
"From a Linux configuration point of view, Rocket Zena is straightforward. It's fairly easy to set up the server and agents once you know how to do it."
"The most valuable feature is the FTP file transfer."
"In the latest upgrade, Zena added a web-based client. The more I use it, the more I like it. It's an excellent interface. They do a good job of steadily improving the solution to make it more useful."
"Its FTP feature is very good, as is scheduling any process or task with the Zena client. I have found it to be very helpful. If a task fails, it gives you a prompt."
"I like the whole product, but specifically, I like the license part. It's very easy to acquire a license for this product."
"We haven't had any problems since we installed it. It runs as expected, we haven't had any critical problems. It helps keeps the business running 24/7."
"You can click Ctrl-G and bring a diagram view. You're able to view in a diagram format. The view that it provides is easy, and you can move to the left, up, or down. You can double-click on a certain process. It'll drill into that process and all of its underlying components. You can double-click on an arrow or a component, and it'll bring up a screen that'll have all the variables that are assigned to that particular piece, as well as the values at run time. So, the diagram feature of it, at least for me, is pretty valuable."
 

Cons

"But for some issues, BMC will suggest to upgrade to new version which will not be feasible to standards of the organisation. Hence some work around should be shown to run the business until new version was upgraded."
"I would like to see more audit report templates added, and perhaps more customizability in terms of reporting."
"The response time could be faster when you need a person to answer your questions. There are situations where availability becomes crucial."
"The unifying features between Control-M for different platforms needs improvement. The scheduling options on the Control-M mainframe jobs are different than they are on our Linux server. There are a few differences here and there."
"There is definitely room for improvement. Version 9.0.20 actually comes with a web-based interface, but there are still a lot of things unavailable with it. There will eventually be more inclusions added into the web interface, but there is still a long way to go."
"Consider adding a mobile application for remote management."
"The licensing cost can be improved."
"The MFT applications should have more functionality and flexibility within that tool. Having more flexibility with that tool for handling the one to many or many to one concept. Like being able to take data from one source and push it to many locations or pull data from many locations and bring it back into a single source. That's why we still use our TPS program for the file transfers just because we don't have some of those capabilities available to us within MFT."
"The UI is not intuitive, and it would be nice if there was a web interface."
"The scheduling mapping is a little disjointed. There is no wizard-type approach. There are a lot of different things that you have to do in completely different areas. They could probably add the functionality for creating all components of a mapping or an OPA schedule. The component creation could be done collectively rather than through individual components."
"In the web interface, it stacks the tasks across the top, and they accumulate until you close or clean those out. That seems a little cumbersome. You must right-click and close all tabs constantly to keep the console clean and manage your views."
"One area where it could be improved is communication between the different servers. Sometimes there are processes that have already been completed but we get a status notification that they're still active."
"Rocket Zena is a mainframe-based job scheduler. I would like it to be more open so that we can use it on a distributed platform."
"In the next release, I would like the user experience to be improved. The user interface should be more appealing to gen-z."
"The documentation has room for improvement."
"Another one that is probably a little bit bigger for me is that when there is an issue or there's an error, it writes on a different screen. I have to find the actual process name and go to a different screen to view the alert that got generated. On that screen, everyone's processes, not just the processes of the folks in my department, are thrown. It takes me a while to find the actual error so that I could go in there and look at the alert. It could be because of the way it was set up, but at least for me, it isn't too intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a little bit expensive."
"Pricing can be steep, but you get what you pay for."
"Pricing varies depending on which components and modules you are using."
"We have a license till 2024. We are good and satisfied with it."
"We are paying way more for Control-M than we've paid for any of our other scheduling tools."
"This is an area where it is a little difficult to work with BMC. They want to do licenses by job, which is what we have. For example, the simplest is to license by job, but they can also license by nodes. While the licensing is simple to use, it might not be the correct licensing model for the customer. It is okay because we want to license by job, which is something measurable. At the end of the day, licensing by job is the most important."
"we are more looking for a better cost/license/performance model because BMC, while we could say it's the best, is also the most expensive. That is what we are probably most annoyed with. We are paying something like €1,000,000 over three years for having 4,000 jobs running. That's expensive."
"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."
"The pricing and the licensing are good. It is affordable and can be used to improve and optimize productivity."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Workload Automation solutions are best for your needs.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about Control-M?
First of all, the shift from manual to automation has been valuable. We have a tool that can automate.
What are some of the things you've done to recession-proof your tech stacks?
Automation can play a pivotal role here. Many users understood that during an economic downturn, they needed to achieve more with limited resources. Automation emerged as a powerful solution to fil...
Do you have any tips for managing my company's modernization, without any disruptions?
Today, we will look at the legacy systems, the red flags that point at the system getting old and rusty, and the ways a reliable custom software. This guide: https://www.cleveroad.com/blog/legacy-s...
How can hybrid cloud solutions benefit our organization’s infrastructure?
Hybrid cloud solutions can be really beneficial for organizations' infrastructure. The flexibility and versatility they provide can enable users the ability to adapt to changing business needs and ...
 

Also Known As

Control M
ASG-Zena
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CARFAX, Tampa General Hospital, Navistar, Amadeus, Raymond James, Railinc
Fraternidad Muprespa
Find out what your peers are saying about Control-M vs. Rocket Zena and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.