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 #22. BMC Helix holds a 1.5% mindshare in ISM, compared to Broadcom’s 1.6% 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

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705 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Clarity SM

Read 107 Clarity SM reviews

2,071 Views
1,553 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: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM

January 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

28th

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)

22nd

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 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 Clarity SM is 1.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Clarity SM	1.6%
BMC FootPrints Service Core	1.5%
Other	96.9%

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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Türker Kara

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…

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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

"Technical support is good."

"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."

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

"Having a one stop shop for linked assets and tickets has improved end user adoption and led to a reduction in phone/email tickets."

"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."

"The discovery feature is very flexible."

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

"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."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core pros

"Time sheets are a powerful tool."

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

"XFlow (Temperature) and Service Point together provided an extremely user-friendly and collaborative experience to the point of making it easy for all users of the product, whether end-users or analysts."

"As of late, I really like the BI functions."

"We especially like the look of xFlow. That looks very personal, so they can keep track of how things are going with their ticket, if it has been worked on, what the status of it is. It seems to be a little more user friendly. The user can see more from a distance right away."

"You can customize it and make it work to the client's needs."

"It has allowed us to be more efficient in our problem and change management processes and procedures."

"It has given us the ability to automate a lot of tasks, things we couldn't do before."

More Clarity SM pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

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

"The mobile version of this product does not support asset management."

"The workflow should be made to be more user-friendly. It should also have more granular scalability."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core cons

"They really want user names in the document owner and subject expert fields, and that is just not practical."

"One area that this product can improve is in the mobile user aspect."

"We went from 12.1 to 14, so there was a lot involved in it. The issues we had were migration issues, getting our information from one place to the next and making sure everything was as everyone needed."

"The SDM administration and customisation needS deep information about architecture and vendor support continuously."

"The methodology introduced for Level 1 analysts needs to be taken to Change Management Process. It would be useful to be able to look in Change Management and see the current status of the process."

"Nowadays every person is used to an interface that is more user-friendly and this one is not so user-friendly maybe due to the fact that, if you need to let people customize everything, sometimes you lose out on a clean user experience."

"Diversifying notification methods with pop-ups or ready-made WhatsApp or Skype integration packages would be welcome."

"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."

More Clarity SM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"This solution has good pricing."

"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."

"The pricing is based on a subscription model."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Marketing Services Firm

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Performing Arts

Media Company

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 23% of the time

Rezolve AI Platform vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 18% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 9% of the time

Zendesk vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 7% of the time

TOPdesk vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 5% of the time

More BMC FootPrints Service Core Competitors

JIRA Service Management vs Clarity SM

Compared 21% of the time

ServiceNow vs Clarity SM

Compared 10% of the time

Vision Helpdesk 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)

January 2026

Download BMC FootPrints Service Core product report

Buyer's Guide

Clarity SM

February 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

January 2026

Free Report: BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM

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