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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
29th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
29th
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
25th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
23rd
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 January 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Clarity SM is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Clarity SM1.6%
BMC FootPrints Service Core1.3%
Other97.1%
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

"Having a one stop shop for linked assets and tickets has improved end user adoption and led to a reduction in phone/email tickets."
"We have found the reports and the lockdown on a ticket valuable, so only one person can update issues."
"I like the fact that FootPrints is a relational database, so every item in the database can be linked to another. This helps create history and audit trails for each CI."
"It is stable and its technical support is good and quick."
"​Ability to auto-generate email messages, process email messages, and approvals."
"This product solidly handles incident management, problem management, and change management."
"Technical support is good."
"Implemented system-wide process for approving and tracking "employee move" requests for over 15,000 employees."
"The integration between the ticketing and knowledge is huge, because that is a best practice. The knowledge is great. It is simple but efficient, and it works.​"
"The database and the power that is driven behind the database."
"The in-service catalog is quite useful."
"Modules of integrated ITIL managers."
"The flexibility and being able to connect to multiple products are valuable. It allows to use it the way we want to use it versus the way it came out of the box."
"Ability to write macros, which can in turn trigger some condition or could be conditioned to basically trigger notifications, the workflow desk, or web calls. It is huge benefit to customize it."
"Clarity is flexible to implement and integrate. It gives the developer or consultant a broad space to work and customize based on what the customers want."
"It allows IT to handle users on a personal basis. It allows IT to have a name and a face, and we interact with the end-users."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"The workflow should be made to be more user-friendly. It should also have more granular scalability."
"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 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. 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."
"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 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."
"The CA products integrate well together but I would like to see better integration with third-party solutions."
"One area that this product can improve is in the mobile user aspect."
"Although I wasn't involved in the initial setup I have been involved with upgrades. They have been fairly complex. We've had some issues with upgrades where we had to roll back and get some things fixed. Some things that we ended up tracking back to not following directions right, but then other things we've run into issues."
"Right now, you have to create the Scoreboards individually for roles or users. If they could separate that functionality, and create the scoreboards separately, and then just link scoreboards to roles and users - that way you could reuse the same ones - that would be a huge benefit. I know, because they're a nightmare to manage at times."
"The cost of this solution is too high, which is why we're leaving."
"I would like to see the API cleaned up."
"The interface is pretty straightforward, but I think for some end-users a little more simplified user interface would help."
"They should enhance the service desk manager's service point function to be more customizable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution has good pricing."
"Our costs are well over $250,000."
"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."
"Cost was on par with other service desk products, and well below Remedy, while still being a BMC product."
"The pricing is based on a subscription model."
"It is a bit expensive, but you definitely get what you pay for. It is worth it!"
"I think pricing of this model is suitable for growing corporations."
"Pricing is simple, as it’s per concurrent analysts."
"The solution is quite reasonable compared to other solutions in the market."
"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."
"I don't see anyone other than large companies being able to afford this system."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
13%
Media Company
10%
Performing Arts
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.