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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
30th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
26th
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
9th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 1.6%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 5.5%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC Helix ITSM5.5%
BMC FootPrints Service Core1.6%
Other92.9%
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

"We can track issues easier and run reports on issues to see if there are patterns."
"It has helped the help desk team. We get our tickets in and are able to support our customers, the end-users, with this solution."
"It is stable and its technical support is good and quick."
"It's extremely stable; we've got customers who are mobile telecommunication customers, hospitals, power companies, and an airport, and we can handle the volume with no interruptions where instability would really be unacceptable."
"​Ability to auto-generate email messages, process email messages, and approvals."
"We use BMC FootPrints Service Core to manage network issues, infrastructure issues, software issues, ERP, and our facility, using it for work orders and as an extra ticketing system."
"Implemented system-wide process for approving and tracking "employee move" requests for over 15,000 employees."
"I think the most important feature is the ability to receive valuable ticket status support in a timely manner with little to no downtime interruptions."
"The digital workplace is appealing."
"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, and each customer has their own needs, and the customization the solution provides is beneficial."
"The MyIT product has given our end users a much better perception of Remedy and made the product look more fluid. This has made people more likely to log calls rather than do work offline."
"It's easy to customize and provides a range of features you can customize with practically no exceptions unlike its competing products like ServiceNow, etc. which have many limitations."
"The standards and the framework that it follows are most valuable. It has an ITIL and out-of-the-box framework."
"The main valuable feature is the flexibility of the product -- the ability of being able to make it do almost anything we need it to do to adjust to our business needs and to do it very quickly."
"BMC Smart IT is somewhat rigid, but they have a powerful backend that supports our complex need for extension versus customization."
"Automatic orchestration is the most valuable. The feature for designating some cases or incidents to the right PM for resolution, first call resolution, and change management are also important. The self-service feature and knowledge base resolutions are helping the customers in resolving issues rather than opening tickets."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"Reporting could be improved along with the option to create more fine tuned reports and to create specific fields for each type of ticket."
"To improve the product for our usage, the pricing maybe could be a bit lower."
"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."
"The pricing could be a little lower and the product should cover more iTel versions."
"The workflow should be made to be more user-friendly. It should also have more granular scalability."
"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."
"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"The reports need improvement, it is not a good functioning tool."
"BMC Helix ITSM is difficult for us to customize, and most customizations require vendor support, which leads to extra costs."
"Log in process is unnecessarily complicated."
"Any software has a lifecycle. To me, BMC is a dated architecture."
"Integration could be better. If something doesn't work well with some tools and operations, then management becomes difficult, so you have to integrate other tools."
"Customer Service could use some improvement – while they are technically very good, some of the agents have poorer communication skills than others."
"The documentation could improve in BMC Helix ITSM."
"Did come across few hiccups around some product documentation not available or not very useful or not enough support available or maybe a utility not working as desired, however, these were not show stoppers and we managed to work our way around these."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution has good pricing."
"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."
"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."
"It is too expensive for a small business."
"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."
"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."
"BMC Helix ITSM is a very cost-effective solution."
"Just make sure you really sit down and look at what you will be using per user, therefore you will not be surprised with a big bill. You do not want every user having every license, it really is not needed."
"There are licenses to use this solution."
"I am not sure the exact price we pay for the solution but I know it is in the high seven-figure amount annually."
"BMC is a little bit cheaper than ServiceNow, but BMC doesn't have the same capabilities in its entry-level product at the moment. The basic version does not have the DWP features that most of our customers are requesting."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
6%
 

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 Enterprise55
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with BMC Helix ITSM?
Although BMC Helix ITSM is a strong enterprise platform, there are areas where it could be improved. One key area is usability and simplification of configuration, especially for new administrators...
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix ITSM?
My main use case for BMC Helix ITSM is validating and automating core ITSM workflows, such as incident, change, and service request management. I focus on ensuring that these workflows function cor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Helix ITSM?
My thoughts on the pricing and licensing cost of BMC Helix ITSM are that it is flexible.
 

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: May 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.