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BMC FootPrints Service Core vs Clarity SM 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
Clarity SM
Ranking in Help Desk Software
18th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
20th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
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 Clarity SM is 2.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Clarity SM2.3%
BMC FootPrints Service Core1.6%
Other96.1%
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…
Türker Kara - PeerSpot reviewer
Application & Software Architect at Turkiye Finans Participation Bank
Quite good back-end architecture for end users but the API is very, very bad
Our company uses the solution for system, program, service request, change, and knowledge-based management.  We perform CMD authorizations and use a lot of integrations for our in-house or third-party applications. We also use Salesforce automations and Microsoft orchestrations.  We have about…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is good."
"Implemented system-wide process for approving and tracking "employee move" requests for over 15,000 employees."
"This product solidly handles incident management, problem management, and change management."
"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."
"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."
"This is certainly a solution that I recommend for big enterprise."
"It is stable and its technical support is good and quick."
"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."
"Perfect, one of the most stable solutions ever."
"In combination with Automation for Cloud Services, it has increased the ability to dynamically allocate Virtual Machines for test and development."
"The solution is highly stable; we are using the high availability product for our application server, and the program server is enough for our organization, allowing us to use the application in over 70 countries where it works well for us."
"It has all our configurations. All our infrastructure configurations are on a single pane of glass to view, allowing for one single point of information."
"The ticket incidents and requests management are the most valuable features for us."
"As of late, I really like the BI functions."
"We have integrated Service Desk Manager fully from servicing the customer, right down to the network configuration, and that provides many customer benefits and enhances our customer experience as well."
"Advanced Availability architecture is hands down the key feature, as we can make sweeping changes to the application or database with minimal impact on our user base, and most of the time the users see no downtime at all."
 

Cons

"The workflow should be made to be more user-friendly. It should also have more granular scalability."
"The pricing could be a little lower and the product should cover more iTel versions."
"It would be better if it were more user-friendly. The reporting part in the version we have is a little complicated."
"The mobile version of this product does not support asset management."
"The mobile version of this product does not support asset management."
"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."
"Reporting could be improved along with the option to create more fine tuned reports and to create specific fields for each type of ticket."
"Sometimes it is difficult to make the application do exactly what you need."
"Just little technical tweaks here and there. Like more options. For example "Organization." We wanted that to be available inside the change order, as well as the ticket and the request. And that's not available."
"When I stood it up, the documentation was not as straightforward as it could have been."
"Clarity tech support has gotten worse since Broadcom acquired CA Technologies. We're not getting the support we've come to expect as a large enterprise."
"We would like to see them revamp, or rework, a lot of their configuration management database structures."
"Release Management is not supported out of the box"
"One of the issues that exists, and I don't know you can really call it an issue, but it's not there yet, it needs to be tighter integration between PAM and Service Desk and they understand that, because the PAM engine for driving business automation and workflows is so critical to our business and keeping us on schedule and doing things."
"CMDB and the user interface, especially for extracting reports, could be improved."
"We talk a lot about the idea that Service Desk Manager should be more "service" oriented, not just ticket oriented."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution has good pricing."
"Cost was on par with other service desk products, and well below Remedy, while still being a BMC product."
"Our costs are well over $250,000."
"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."
"It is a bit expensive, but you definitely get what you pay for. It is worth it!"
"Clarity offers a perpetual license. Customers purchase the license once and then pay for maintenance. CA provides a subscription model as well. Both models are available for our customers."
"The solution is quite reasonable compared to other solutions in the market."
"I think pricing of this model is suitable for growing corporations."
"There is a subscripted needed to use Clarity SM. The price of the solution could be less expensive. ServiceNow is less expensive and BMC Helix is priced similar to Clarity SM."
"I don't see anyone other than large companies being able to afford this system."
"Pricing is simple, as it’s per concurrent analysts."
"The pricing is based on a subscription model."
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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
30%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
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 Business20
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise66
 

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core
CA Service Desk Manager, Clarity Service Management, CA Service Management, Unicenter Service Desk, CA SDM, CA Service Catalog, CA Business Service Insight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cast & Crew
Banco G&T Continental City of Perth, FEMSA, Fujitsu, Manpower, Muslim Commercial Bank - MCB, Punjab National Bank, Santa Clara County Social Services, Stefanini
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.