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BMC Helix CMDB vs Device42 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Helix CMDB
Ranking in Configuration Management Databases
6th
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Device42
Ranking in Configuration Management Databases
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (5th), IP Address Management (IPAM) Tools (3rd), Data Center Infrastructure Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Configuration Management Databases category, the mindshare of BMC Helix CMDB is 8.6%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Device42 is 26.8%, up from 20.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Device4226.8%
BMC Helix CMDB8.6%
Other64.6%
Configuration Management Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Yousef Bayari - PeerSpot reviewer
ITSM Consultant at Smart IT Service
Serves as a repository for storing configuration items, encompassing both physical and logical entities
The main feature is the relational model database, where you define relationships between CIs. Being able to establish CI relationships and building a service model is a key aspect of CMDB. Additionally, the traditional features of asset management, such as tracking assets through attributes, location, and ownership (both organizational and individual), are also part of it. On top of these, the CI model, which handles relationships and service models, is pivotal.
Manmohan Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Hitachi Systems India Private Limited
Granular discovery has ensured confident workload migration and optimized cloud move group planning
Device42 offers the best features for workload assessment, particularly useful for cloud-to-cloud workload or on-premise data center workload, especially when planning for workload migration to the public cloud. For application and infrastructure discovery, Device42 has enabled me to know the number of machines running in the on-premise environment and has managed to capture complete utilization metrics or trends of their utilization. This has benefited me in right-sizing systems for my public cloud total cost of ownership (TCO) planning, providing me granularity to right-size these systems while planning a migration to the public cloud. Device42 has positively impacted my organization by providing granularity toward application discovery compared to other assessment tools, which is a differentiator since none of the other tools provide such granularity, leading to better decision-making for my migration to the public cloud. Device42 has improved my migration projects by providing granularity around system dependencies that gave me confidence knowing which systems communicate with each other parked in a particular move group. My move group planning became so robust that I am not leaving any system behind in the on-premise data center from my planning, which saves a lot of time and effort, leading to cost optimization—a value addition.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Atrium Integrator​ allows me to manage my data, with regular updates, etc. and integrate with multiple systems."
"It allows me to easily manage my data: Cleanse, load, and report on it."
"Atrium CMDB is a great solution for having all your networks mapped into it."
"Over the years, we have progressed to have close to a real-time up-to-date view into the assets in our environment."
"The main feature is the relational model database, where you define relationships between CIs. Being able to establish CI relationships and building a service model is a key aspect of CMDB."
"This solution makes it easy for us to access data, and seamlessly integrates with all ITSM as well as the monitoring parts."
"The most valuable features of BMC Atrium CMDB are its ease to build new classes. For example, let's say there are types of CIs or efforts that do not exist in BMC Atrium CMDB. You can create your own and their relationship to existing classes."
"This solution makes it easy for us to access data, and seamlessly integrates with all ITSM as well as the monitoring parts."
"Device42 is a fantastic tool for workload discovery, and I believe everyone should start using it if they have plans to do so; it is a top-notch tool in the market."
"Before Device42, the company didn't have any kind of asset management software at all, but now that we have Device42, we're integrating every single office into it so we know exactly what's where, which is a huge improvement that has probably halved the time it takes to do the management side of our IT assets."
"Device42 has positively impacted my organization by helping us lead successful migration and transformation projects, and I have successfully completed cloud movement implementation from standard data center deployments to the cloud."
"The auto-discovery is brilliant. You can have it scheduled to run on a regular basis, and the infrastructure is always getting updated within the platform. I would rate the asset discovery very highly. It's very comprehensive. It covers quite a lot of different methods for doing discovery and it supports a lot of different types of hardware as well."
"Device42 has positively impacted our organization by helping us become one of the best companies for asset management and inventory for the enterprise businesses we work with."
"Asset management is a difficult, time consuming thing, however, Device42 has helped me streamline that so I can focus on other areas that need improvement."
"We use the automatic IT asset discovery for different things, like VMware discovery and SNMP discovery for network devices. It helps us to keep hardware information up to date in Device42, and the VMware discovery helps us to keep virtual device inventory up to date... We are sure to have 100 percent of our devices in Device42. Not more, not less."
"Device42 positively impacts my organization because we build the as-is as soon as possible, avoiding the delays we would face with the network or security teams, and I captured more than 100 traffic entries in just two weeks, which was great."
 

Cons

"BMC Atrium CMDB could improve if they had a cloud version and made the interface better."
"Looking for a more streamlined interface; one that matches the other parts of the BMC Remedy product line."
"We would like the service modelling functionality of this solution to be improved."
"BMC Atrium CMDB could improve if they had a cloud version and made the interface better."
"I am just waiting for the new release with the new enhanced UI."
"There could be a provision in the back end to ensure unique collections and avoid duplicate services."
"We would like a more efficient impact analysis feature to be developed for this product; at present it takes a lot of time to identify the risk and its impact."
"Recently, improvements have been more focused on the interface side."
"The architecture is a bit old-fashioned. Device42 is on one server, appliance, virtual machine, or guest. We are loading more into Device42 than it can hold. Overloading Device42 with REST API calls or tasks will directly impact every aspect because the server will be too busy to answer requests."
"The product must provide AI features."
"I think the graphical representation of all associated machines needs improvement to better illustrate how these systems have dependencies on each other."
"For the iPhone, the device diagram cannot be downloaded. You have to go to each device and download the device diagram for that device. E.g., suppose there are a 1000 or 2000 servers. You cannot go to each server or device to download a device diagram for each device. There should be a one-click solution for downloading all device diagrams."
"I have not seen a return on investment with Device42, as it primarily provides information and not revenue."
"We have not yet seen ROI. The solution has not reduced the time spent managing IT assets."
"The solution’s automatic IT asset discovery and inventory functionality functions pretty well. There could be some improvement if there were some automated scripts to get it off the ground. I know it takes a bit of effort to get all of various managed devices into one place. We have to go and change how they are managed and make sure they are all linking up correctly so they can be tracked in Device42. Some type of automated script for each to get over that initial activation."
"Price-wise, from what I understand from my leadership, Device42 has some cost and it is a bit high compared to other discovery tools such as BMC Discovery or BMC Helix."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CMDB is more expensive than one of its competitors."
"It's in the top-three most expensive solutions in terms of cost, but it has all the features that are needed."
"The problem with using other vendor, like BMC, is the pricing. The price is so horrible and nobody wants to pay this money."
"I am not involved in its pricing, but I have seen their plans during a discussion with the customer. For 500 servers, they were asking 50,000 USD. The cost of BMC Discovery was less than half. For the same thing, they were charging only 10,000 USD. Its pricing needs to be improved. As compared to other discovery tools, such as BMC Discovery and ServiceNow Discovery, its price is a little bit higher."
"Functionality-wise, Device42 is on par with industry standards, but price-wise, the solution is expensive. I'm rating the pricing for the solution as eight out of ten."
"The product cost is low. It is quite cheap."
"We pay $100,000 per year."
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing is $10,000. However, our license is now nearly full with devices. We need the next bigger license with 5,000 devices, which will cost us $19,000. We pay for a set of licenses, a maximum number of devices, and a maximum number of IP addresses. We have the smallest amount of features, which is enough for us at this time."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Device42?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Device42 are relatively cost-effective and affordable. I do not know if a small organization would be able to afford it, but I presume it would also be co...
What needs improvement with Device42?
I think Device42 can be improved by adding more features around the CMDB aspect and lifecycle management. I do not think many people use it for that functionality, but if they were to expand the su...
What is your primary use case for Device42?
My main use case for Device42 is that we use it as a CMDB and affinity map to check out network topology or determine when we need to decom something in a life cycle. We use it for many different p...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Atrium CMDB
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield
Computershare, Concur, Doosan, Fitch Ratings Inc., Fujitsu, HomeAway, Jasper Wireless, Mercedes-Benz, Square, Twitch, UCSB, Zayo Group Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix CMDB vs. Device42 and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.