We performed a comparison between Control-M and IBM Sterling File Gateway based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It is an enterprise tool that integrates with all the applications in our organization. It has made our life easier because we don't need to wake up at midnight and do monitoring, etc. It does everything. It also sends precautionary alerts. If a job or activity is running for more than the specified time, it alerts the application team. So, our teams do not need to sit in front of a laptop or any open application to watch the jobs. They can do their other regular activities while Control-M takes care of all the jobs. It notifies them when there is job completion, delay, and error."
"We used Control-M's Python Client and cloud data service integrations with AWS and, as a feature, it was very customizable. It gave us a lot of flexibility for customizing whatever data maneuver we wanted to do within a pipeline."
"Self Service for repeatable, low impact workload automation processes."
"Monitoring is a valuable aspect of it. The monitoring tool is very good, and it is easy for expert and entry level users to use on a short notice."
"The feature we use most in Control-M is related to the file transfer module. It is quite advanced compared to the other tools like Automate, etc. The new version which has come of same MFT has a lot of advanced features which makes it very easy to work with. There is less need for written programs and more GUI-based stuff."
"The scheduling feature and scheduling tool are the most valuable features. I like the scheduling services that we have in Control-M, which are very beneficial to our organization because they are automating things. There is also less manual work. We can schedule a task without any manual interruptions."
"It has a very good GUI. We can search for a job very easily. The web interface, user account creation, and access control are very good. From an access control point of view, we can provide access to as many users as we want. A second group of users can be given a certain number of features, according to the requirements. The web interface is very easy for end users to login and use. A lot of features have been added, e.g., adding jobs. They can add jobs to their stuff, whatever they want, then get it validated by the scheduling team and work it into production."
"We can tie together all the workloads across the estate and make the whole process reactive to events."
"The most valuable aspect is that it has good functionality."
"It's highly configurable, there is no need for standalone scripting."
"I have found almost all the features valuable."
"This product has been a leader in the field of secure file exchange."
"It offers easy utilization of resources for smooth transfers."
"Very high functionality with the ability to plug in your own code."
"The history module only contains a maximum of 10 days, but we would like to have access to more. For example, it would be helpful to have 30 days or two months of history available."
"The infrastructure could be improved."
"An issue we have run into in our lower environments is that Control-M can log you out frequently."
"A Control-M on-prem license is based on the number of jobs, which is the number of tasks a particular customer wants to have. These tasks have to be run within 24 hours window. For example, if you have a license for 100 jobs, you can run a maximum of 100 jobs in a 24-hour window. If your operations could not run 10 jobs, and they ran only 90 jobs, they just carry over to the next day, but the next day, they will have 110 jobs. Control-M asks you to buy those 10 more licenses because you were out of compliance in terms of the number of licenses. This is something that needs to be indicated in Control-M GUI so that customers know the number of licenses they're going to use in this time window. Their support and documentation should be improved. I am not that satisfied with their customer support. Sometimes, they don't have the answers. Their documentation is very poor. It is not well written, and it is not in a very logical manner. You can use it on Unix, Linux, Windows, and AIX, but it needs some improvement on iSeries. It needs a built-in mechanism inside the system to give you an option to restore from the last point of failure. If a process crashes, the Control-M needs to have a mechanism in iSeries where the process can be restored from the last point of failure."
"Consider adding a mobile application for remote management."
"We would recommend modernizing the look and feel of Control-M. They also need to move towards more self-service and development in their environment. It's very antiquated."
"The next major release needs to focus on the lightweight web client."
"After we complete FTP jobs, those FTP jobs will be cleared from the Control-M schedule after the noon refresh. So, I struggle to find out where those jobs are saved. Then, we need to request execution of the FTP jobs again. If there could be an option to show the logs, which have been previously completed, that would help us. I can find all other job logs from the server side, but FTP job logs. Maybe I am missing the feature, or if it is not there, it could be added."
"The API capabilities could be expanded to make integration more versatile."
"I would like to see auto-deployment without service disruptions."
"Too many features; UI is not good."
"Not a ten because it's a bit complex, not so simple. It's one product but there are many screens."
"The admin console needs some work."
"IBM is advising not to use the IT translate anymore but this is going to be an extra cost to the customer to use the alternative."
Control-M is ranked 2nd in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 110 reviews while IBM Sterling File Gateway is ranked 3rd in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 6 reviews. Control-M is rated 8.8, while IBM Sterling File Gateway is rated 7.4. The top reviewer of Control-M writes "We have seen quicker file transfers with more visibility and stability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Sterling File Gateway writes "Easy to use with good validation and monitoring of the file transfer". Control-M is most compared with AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Rocket Zena, Automic Workload Automation and ESP Workload Automation Intelligence, whereas IBM Sterling File Gateway is most compared with MOVEit, Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct, Aspera Managed File Transfer, BMC Control-M Managed File Transfer and MessageWay. See our Control-M vs. IBM Sterling File Gateway report.
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