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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

"The rules functionality makes it easier to classify data for different groups."
"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."
"Atrium Integrator​ allows me to manage my data, with regular updates, etc. and integrate with multiple systems."
"Atrium CMDB is a great solution for having all your networks mapped into it."
"This solution has improved our tracking."
"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."
"Over the years, we have progressed to have close to a real-time up-to-date view into the assets in our environment."
"I've used NetBox, MyIP, and RackTables; I've used quite a bunch of these other tools out there, and honestly, Device42 is the best."
"It's nice to know that you can set up the scan, schedule it, and sit back."
"The reporting part is valuable. You have classic reports, and you can also do advanced reporting. They also have the DOQL feature for queries. You can write SQL queries to get your data and create custom reports."
"Discovery tools such as Device42 are very useful for enterprise level organizations."
"The most helpful feature in Device42 was the import feature, where you can seamlessly import your information into the configuration database manager."
"The solution's CMDB, ITAM, and DCIM features create a single source of IT truth in our environment."
"The IP address tracking [is valuable]... We have a lot of different devices and some of them have many IP addresses, so keeping track of which ones are assigned where is very critical for putting new devices on the network and giving them new addresses. All of our devices are statically assigned, so if we don't keep good records then we could accidentally assign a duplicate, which would cause problems on the network."
"The import/export for bulk operations is a valuable and good feature."
 

Cons

"Looking for a more streamlined interface; one that matches the other parts of the BMC Remedy product line."
"Recently, improvements have been more focused on the interface side."
"We would like the service modelling functionality of this solution to be improved."
"Looking for a more streamlined interface; one that matches the other parts of the BMC Remedy product line."
"BMC Atrium CMDB could improve if they had a cloud version and made the interface better."
"There could be a provision in the back end to ensure unique collections and avoid duplicate services."
"I am just waiting for the new release with the new enhanced UI."
"BMC Atrium CMDB could improve if they had a cloud version and made the interface better."
"Currently, if you want to ping devices, you need to log into Appliance Manager. This feature should be available on the Device42 side. You should be able to use the ping utility without logging into Appliance Manager. The features that are there in Appliance Manager should also be available on the main Device42 server so that you have more control on one screen. You don't need to switch to another portal, but it is not something critical."
"The resources table needs a few tweaks. We've raised a feature request for this. When you click on resources, it opens up the entire CMDB or the entire data stored in Device42. If that could be customizable, it would be good. We should be allowed to add our own columns to that by writing a script or something like that. There should be an option to add or limit whatever we want."
"My biggest problem with the product is the upgrades. First, we have to do them manually and second, not this last time but the time before that, we actually had to build a new VM to deploy the solution again. We had to back it up and then restore it to the new version. That was inconvenient."
"I have not seen a return on investment with Device42, as it primarily provides information and not revenue."
"It was hard to know which assets I'd already looked at because if I looked up another asset with a similar name, they would still pop up. I would have to make sure I was looking at the right asset. The search function should be improved."
"It would be nice for the agent to have an installer versus a single file across multiple systems."
"The only thing which I have noticed so far that is not good is that we had an issue with some reporting from the tool, reporting we had to export."
"The product must provide AI features."
 

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."
"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."
"We pay $100,000 per year."
"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."
"The problem with using other vendor, like BMC, is the pricing. The price is so horrible and nobody wants to pay this money."
"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."
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"The product cost is low. It is quite cheap."
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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.