BMC FootPrints Service Core vs Clarity SM comparison

BMC Helix and Broadcom are both solutions in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category. BMC Helix is ranked #28, while Broadcom is ranked #21. BMC Helix holds a 1.5% mindshare in ISM, compared to Broadcom’s 1.7% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of BMC Helix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

BMC FootPrints Service Core

Read 10 BMC FootPrints Service Core reviews

1,125 Views
788 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Clarity SM

Read 107 Clarity SM reviews

2,446 Views
1,859 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

BMC FootPrints Service Core

Clarity SM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Clarity SM and BMC FootPrints Service Core are both formidable contenders in the service management software domain. BMC FootPrints Service Core holds a distinctive advantage with its extensive feature set that outweighs the higher costs, making it particularly appealing to businesses looking for robust capabilities.

Features: Clarity SM enhances efficiency with its excellent resource management, user-friendly integrations, and a secure environment. BMC FootPrints Service Core stands out with powerful automation, highly customizable workflows, and comprehensive incident management capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Clarity SM could benefit from enhanced reporting features, improved customization tools, and a wider range of plug-ins. BMC FootPrints Service Core might improve on ease of use, more streamlined deployment options, and better pricing flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Clarity SM offers a straightforward cloud deployment with responsive support ensuring rapid adaptation. BMC FootPrints Service Core, while involving a complex setup, provides valuable documentation and superior customer service, helpful for detailed implementations.

Pricing and ROI: Clarity SM is attractive for its competitive pricing and substantial ROI from lower setup and maintenance costs. BMC FootPrints Service Core, though pricier, offers a strong ROI through its expansive feature set and long-term operational benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM

March 2026

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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)

28th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Clarity SM

Ranking in Help Desk Software

22nd

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

21st

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 March 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 Clarity SM is 1.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Clarity SM	1.7%
BMC FootPrints Service Core	1.5%
Other	96.8%

IT Service Management (ITSM)

Featured Reviews

reviewer1765752

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…

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Sandip Kheni

Lead Developer at STL - Sterlite Technologies Limited

Allows for customization of the service desk manager

They should enhance the service desk manager's service point function to be more customizable. Presently, there are so many limitations in this particular UI. Thus, similar to the existing UI, they should provide a customization source for this new UI. It could turn out to be very good for the end-user experience.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"I feel confident in saying that BMC FootPrints Service Core is definitely one of the best products in the market."

"We can track issues easier and run reports on issues to see if there are patterns."

"I have used Tier II BMC support a few times. They were very responsive and recreated my environment in their lab to support me."

"Implemented system-wide process for approving and tracking "employee move" requests for over 15,000 employees."

"Ability to auto-generate email messages, process email messages, and approvals."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core pros

"We centralized our knowledge from various sources into one source of truth that is continually updated."

"The view it provides into who's doing the work."

"It is a stable and good product, with several integrations and an interesting API."

"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."

"When users have a problem, they report using Service Desk and it is very useful for this."

"It has a good GUI interface."

"The in-service catalog is quite useful."

"All incidents, requirements, changes and problems are documented in one database."

More Clarity SM pros

Cons

"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."

"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."

"Sometimes it is difficult to make the application do exactly what you need."

"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."

"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."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core cons

"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."

"They need to improve the High Availability, and the native integration between CA Service Desk Manager, CA Process Automation, CA Service Catalog and CA Unified Self-Service."

"The initial setup is complex. CA Service Desk Manager has a complex architecture, and depending upon the features you choose to install, you need more than four machines, which is the minimum number recommended by CA."

"The thing that gets me is they sell it as a customizable tool, but the more customizations you add to it, the less stable it becomes."

"However, I'm cutting down the score because of bad design decisions and outright bad implementation on some specific areas."

"Sometimes I feel that maybe there must be a way to improve it where it's kind of simplified in a way where it's more usable. I think sometimes it's too much for someone to use, or someone gets lost, or someone complains about having too many things in there."

"We would like to see them integrate more of a service catalog, which is more of an Amazon-type fill in your bucket, then sign in, once you decide what you want."

"We need a mobile solution. We are not using any mobile functionality for the product, but we think that this necessary."

More Clarity SM cons

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 is quite reasonable compared to other solutions in the market."

"I don't see anyone other than large companies being able to afford this system."

"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."

"Pricing is simple, as it’s per concurrent analysts."

"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 think pricing of this model is suitable for growing corporations."

"It is a bit expensive, but you definitely get what you pay for. It is worth it!"

"The pricing is based on a subscription model."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Marketing Services Firm

12%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Media Company

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	66

Comparisons

ServiceNow vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 20% of the time

Rezolve.ai vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 16% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 12% of the time

Zendesk vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 6% of the time

Hornbill Systems Supportworks vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 5% of the time

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JIRA Service Management vs Clarity SM

Compared 17% of the time

ServiceNow vs Clarity SM

Compared 9% of the time

Serviceaide ChangeGear vs Clarity SM

Compared 7% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs Clarity SM

Compared 6% of the time

SCSM vs Clarity SM

Compared 6% of the time

More Clarity SM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IT Service Management (ITSM)

March 2026

Download BMC FootPrints Service Core product report

Buyer's Guide

Clarity SM

March 2026

Download Clarity SM product report

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

FootPrints Service Core integrates IT service and asset management for end-to-end business services, and it's easy to install, use, and support. With configurable capabilities that streamline service delivery, FootPrints improves customer satisfaction and IT's reputation with your business users.

BMC Helix

Service desk capabilities, an integral part of the CA Service Management solution, can enable you to deliver efficiencies in IT service management to business consumers, power users and decision makers. Mobility and collaborative self-service capabilities provide a modern user experience for accessing services and performing tasks, which can help drive user adoption, satisfaction and productivity.

Learn More: https://www.ca.com/us/products...

Broadcom

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

Buyer's Guide

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM

March 2026

Free Report: BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM

Find out what your peers are saying about BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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