BMC FootPrints Service Core vs SolarWinds Web Help Desk comparison

BMC Helix and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. BMC Helix is ranked #29, while SolarWinds is ranked #19 with an average rating of 8.0. BMC Helix holds a 1.5% mindshare in HDS, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of BMC Helix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

BMC FootPrints Service Core

Read 10 BMC FootPrints Service Core reviews

1,125 Views
866 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Read 8 SolarWinds Web Help Desk reviews

913 Views
803 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

BMC FootPrints Service Core

SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

BMC FootPrints Service Core and SolarWinds Web Help Desk are competing in the service management category. SolarWinds Web Help Desk appears to have an advantage due to its comprehensive features and higher customer satisfaction.

Features: BMC FootPrints Service Core offers automated workflows aligning with ITIL standards, customizable dashboards, and support for ticketing and asset management. SolarWinds Web Help Desk provides flexible ticketing, asset management capabilities, and intuitive reporting functionalities, appealing for its ease of use and integration flexibility.

Room for Improvement: BMC FootPrints Service Core could improve in areas such as simplifying its interface, enhancing its reporting capabilities, and offering better integration options. SolarWinds Web Help Desk could benefit from expanding its deployment options, enhancing mobile access, and offering more advanced customization features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BMC FootPrints Service Core provides options for both cloud and on-premises deployment, offering personalized support and detailed documentation. SolarWinds Web Help Desk primarily deploys on-premises, known for swift installation and responsive customer support.

Pricing and ROI: BMC FootPrints Service Core presents a higher initial cost with customizable pricing but often results in slower ROI due to its complexity and longer implementation time. SolarWinds Web Help Desk offers competitive pricing with quicker ROI attributed to streamlined setup and maintenance.

To learn more, read our detailed BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk

March 2026

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Helped 884,933 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Service Management (ITSM) (28th)

SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

19th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 1.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Web Help Desk is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
SolarWinds Web Help Desk	1.1%
BMC FootPrints Service Core	1.5%
Other	97.4%

Help Desk Software

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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GANESAN K

Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited

Has supported daily operational workflows and improved approval management across departments

We actually do the reselling. We created a self-service portal for the customers, and this particular function does impact reducing IT staff workload overall. From technical standpoints, comparing SolarWinds Web Help Desk with TeamViewer, we need ease of configuration and ease of allocating, creating new fields or creating new layouts for many specific use cases. An organization can have a number of use cases when it comes to a ticketing tool. It's not a security solution; it's more of a service solution where you will be configuring the needed categories and needed fields for each department. On a scale of 1-10, I rate SolarWinds Web Help Desk an 8.

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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

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"We have found the reports and the lockdown on a ticket valuable, so only one person can update issues."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core pros

"Once installed, it runs like a charm and doesn't ever crash."

"It has a pretty good search function. If you do the advanced search, you can basically search for anything in any field. If I do a search on the request field and just put in some terms I'm searching for, I can usually find the ticket that I'm looking for."

"It is easy to use."

"The solution scales well; currently is working for 60 help desk technicians (IT and non-IT) for over 2,000 users."

"It has a pretty good search function, and if you do the advanced search, you can basically search for anything in any field."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the assets management module."

"SolarWinds is scalable as far as adding devices and servers."

More SolarWinds Web Help Desk pros

Cons

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

"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."

"To improve the product for our usage, the pricing maybe could be a bit lower."

"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 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."

"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."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core cons

"We would like to see automation included in the next release. We would like to eliminate the L1, and L2 support, by at least 80%. To do this, we need automation with AI (Artificial Intelligence) in combination with ML (Machine Learning)."

"The working part, the deployment part, and the configuration part was a little bit complex."

"Dashboards need some amount of work to be done. Ease of customization is desired."

"It would be good if there were training and tutorial videos on the Web Help Desk."

"The interface feels clunky to me compared to some other systems that I've used. I used ManageEngine Service Desk prior to this at my previous job and that had stuff like categories that we use that I don't see in SolarWinds."

"This solution needs to have mobile application support added."

"This is a good solution, but the GUI is really old-fashion and needs to be updated."

"The program seems buggy to me. Not infrequently, when I click to add a Note, the Notes section disappears instead of opening a box to add a Note."

More SolarWinds Web Help Desk cons

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."

"When you compare with ManageEngine and ServiceNow, SolarWinds is reasonable."

"They charge by the technician. It costs $117 per technician per year."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Retailer

13%

University

11%

Performing Arts

11%

Government

10%

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	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Web Help Desk?

Areas of improvement can be enhanced regarding configuration. We had the deployment metrics and usability, ease of use, and ease of access. These were the three functionalities we were looking for ...

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What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Web Help Desk?

For Zoho, we did OP Manager, Audit Security, AD Security and Asset Management, Patch Management. These things we are dealing with Zoho. We are not dealing with solutions such as Zoho Mail or Zoho P...

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What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Web Help Desk?

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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

Samanage vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 4% of the time

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ServiceNow vs SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Compared 17% of the time

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Compared 13% of the time

Freshservice vs SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Compared 12% of the time

Zendesk vs SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Compared 12% of the time

ConnectWise PSA vs SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Compared 8% of the time

More SolarWinds Web Help Desk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IT Service Management (ITSM)

March 2026

Download BMC FootPrints Service Core product report

Buyer's Guide

SolarWinds Web Help Desk

February 2026

Download SolarWinds Web Help Desk product report

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core

No data available

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

SolarWinds Web Help Desk simplifies service management with unified ticketing, asset, knowledge, and change management. Key features include:

Maintain asset inventory by managing the use, availability, and health of IT assets, and tracking this over time.
Control change management, It regulates and manages change requests through automated approval workflows and panel voting options.
Employs robust reporting and monitoring using a built-in reports and dashboards to track ticket status, technician performance, and customer support needs.
Automate ticketing management that Automate service request management through ticket creation, assignment, routing, and escalation.
Centralize your knowledge management, Leverage a built-in help desk knowledge base to create and maintain KB articles and promote end-user self-service for common issues.
Meet your SLAs, it has "SLA breach approaching" notifications and date-specific SLA reminder alerts that help customize escalation and de-escalation workflows.

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

Cast & Crew

Instacart

Buyer's Guide

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk

March 2026

Free Report: BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk

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