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BMC FootPrints Service Core vs BMC Helix ITSM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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 FootPrints Service Core
Ranking in Help Desk Software
28th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
28th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
BMC Helix ITSM
Ranking in Help Desk Software
8th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 1.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 5.7%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BMC Helix ITSM5.7%
BMC FootPrints Service Core1.5%
Other92.8%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1765752 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
A flexible, comprehensive, integrated IT service and asset management platform with good technical support
We use BMC FootPrints Service Core to manage network issues, infrastructure issues, software issues, and ERP. We also use it to manage our facility. So, we do some work orders and also use it as an extra ticketing system Technical support is good. It would be better if it were more…
KN
Senior Application Developer BMC at Balfour Beatty
Self-service portal significantly reduces resolution time and transforms service process with advanced features
We initially had a lot of tickets generated via the service desk through calls and emails. Now, we have almost moved out of email creations by introducing the DWP features on the Studio pages, with about 90% of the tickets coming in via our self-service portal. Recent upgrades offer different types of views for particular business lines, which was missing earlier. The new landing pages have allowed us to add banners, images, and internal videos, encouraging most customers to use these DWP self-service features. Resolution time has decreased significantly since implementing the self-service portal. Additionally, the availability of knowledge articles, chatbots, and the new Helix GPT feature has improved service processes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have used Tier II BMC support a few times. They were very responsive and recreated my environment in their lab to support me."
"Technical support is good."
"We can track issues easier and run reports on issues to see if there are patterns."
"​Ability to auto-generate email messages, process email messages, and approvals."
"Having a one stop shop for linked assets and tickets has improved end user adoption and led to a reduction in phone/email tickets."
"It is stable and its technical support is good and quick."
"Implemented system-wide process for approving and tracking "employee move" requests for over 15,000 employees."
"The discovery feature is very flexible."
"Helix is stable."
"The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM are its customization ability and the addition of new features. As a built-in Suite, it covers all that is needed in the IT guidelines, which is good. Each customer has their own needs, and the customization the solution provides is beneficial."
"Resolution time has decreased significantly since implementing the self-service portal."
"Improved our organization with better customer experience and reporting abilities."
"BMC offers excellent customer solutions, and they're quick to address bugs or shortcomings in their product."
"I like the single sign-on and that administrators can customize."
"Provides a clean front-end for our users to log requests and has rich ITSM functionality."
"The most valuable features I have found to be the activity logs and the other features where you are able to continuously address issues and are able to annotate notes inside to convey them to the customer."
 

Cons

"The mobile version of this product does not support asset management."
"We need more customizable reporting functionality. We could also use more collaboration of service desk tickets. This will allow for two departments to share the same information, track the progress of the total task scope no matter how complex the request is."
"Reporting could be improved along with the option to create more fine tuned reports and to create specific fields for each type of ticket."
"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"It would be better if it were more user-friendly. The reporting part in the version we have is a little complicated. It takes too long to build and report. It would also be better if there were another way to manage notifications."
"Hyphens are not allowed in the quick search bar. This has created a problem in our environment where we use hyphens in our asset names."
"It is pretty clunky and not very intuitive. Even though I have used it for many years, I don't think it is a very good ITSM platform in general. In the telecom space, a lot of telco providers use this solution, but from my perspective, it is not very user friendly. It is a bit more laborious. There are still too many human touchpoints. There can be a little bit more automation. It would also be good to integrate it with other tools. Integration is quite difficult, especially in the telco space."
"The pricing could be a little lower and the product should cover more iTel versions."
"Helix needs to enhance some of its functionality with the latest technology. For example, Helix could improve its chatbot automation to automate more use cases."
"Regarding reporting, when sharing information with leadership, we utilize BI support and data or more analytical tools. These tools provide accurate and comprehensive reports, covering various aspects. Reports are either sent directly through email or automated using scripts. It would be beneficial to integrate similar capabilities into BMC for future use. Many applications we work with already have a centralized virtual automation tool, such as Control M, but manual effort is still required. Improvements in automation for accurate and efficient reporting in BMC would be valuable."
"The initial setup of BMC Helix ITSM is complex because it has different integrations with other tools. Additionally, it needs to be integrated with the active directory and have different databases. The environment will dictate how difficult the process is."
"We found that there was numerous issues upgrading from 8.1 to 9.1 in that all our licenses were broken for almost a year and a half. We chased down a total of 14 hotfixes, patches, and service packs before things were finally resolved. During that time, said "fixes" also broke other things, so it was quite the sore spot with management for some time."
"Smart Reporting was added, then was purchased from another vendor. We have little ability to customize and correct issues due to this."
"They should add some of the bolt-ons into the initial setup, such as chat."
"Whenever you start exploring some new product features, you run into defects. It has been like this for the last six years."
"Its performance can be improved. Sometimes, there is a performance issue, and it is a little slow and difficult on the usage side. It would be beneficial for us if there is a lighter version of this solution. There is also a limitation on the number of columns and memory for extracting a report, and this functionality can be improved. We would like to have better integration and UI in this solution. The user interface should be easy to navigate. Its integration with other tools, such as SharePoint or Jira, can also be improved, which would be beneficial for us. In terms of new features, there should also be a mobile version. The desktop version is available, but the mobile version is not available, which is one of the challenges that our team has. For users who work on Remedy and who raise the ticket, it would also be very beneficial to have some chatbot features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our costs are well over $250,000."
"Cost was on par with other service desk products, and well below Remedy, while still being a BMC product."
"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."
"This solution has good pricing."
"The solution's pricing should come down."
"If Customer and IT agents are happy, that is one of the greatest ROI. However, one of the major factors is Leadership, because at the end they have to justify the cost."
"There are licenses to use this solution."
"It is costly, but it is well worth it."
"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. The solution is expensive."
"It is too expensive for a small business."
"It is not very expensive and not very cheap. It is somewhere in-between. Some of the features are more expensive. There are also additional costs. If you want to use most of the features, you need to pay more."
"I am not sure the exact price we pay for the solution but I know it is in the high seven-figure amount annually."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise54
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about BMC Helix ITSM?
If we consider major players like Ford or BMW, their core focus is manufacturing products like cars. To ensure smooth operations, any arising issues, be it security concerns or issues within depart...
What needs improvement with BMC Helix ITSM?
Currently, we are not utilizing the AI functionality in BMC Helix ITSM as we are still in the roadmap and development phase at this point in time. There isn't anything that I would suggest for impr...
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix ITSM?
We use BMC Helix ITSM for the complete end-to-end ITSM suite, mainly for ticketing and service management. BMC Helix ITSM supports our IT service management processes primarily for all incident, pr...
 

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core
Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy, BMC Helix IT Service Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cast & Crew
Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. BMC Helix ITSM and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,757 professionals have used our research since 2012.