Joint migration inversion (JMI) is a recently developed technology that aims at incorporating the seismic velocity model update and acoustic migration, including all multiple scatterings, into one closed-loop process. Full waveform inversion (FWI) is a commonly accepted technology for velocity model building, and reverse-time migration (RTM)is the main method adopted for depth imaging. In this paper, for the first time we are going to use a 2D realistic deep water model to benchmark JMI against a workflow of FWI combined with RTM. With some insights on JMI gained from this comparison study, we believe FWI-JMI should be the road ahead.