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BMC Helix Discovery vs Device42 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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 Discovery
Ranking in IT Asset Management
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Device42
Ranking in IT Asset Management
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management Databases (4th), IP Address Management (IPAM) Tools (5th), Data Center Infrastructure Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Asset Management category, the mindshare of BMC Helix Discovery is 6.5%, down from 8.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Device42 is 5.5%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Asset Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BMC Helix Discovery6.5%
Device425.5%
Other88.0%
IT Asset Management
 

Featured Reviews

Fairoz Gadad - PeerSpot reviewer
Effortless network component identification, provides API details, and an easy setup
We need to discover anything in the network and ensure that the discovered data is moved into the CMDB for asset management The best part is that whenever there is an outpost or any particular network, it can identify servers, routers, switches, etc. It immediately understands which component it…
AHMEDKASSAB - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows us to determine the exact placement of assets based on the building maps and the room details
In my experience, I believe that the key concern is the pricing strategy of the solution. Instead, other solutions are much more cost-effective. Previously, Device42 has altered the pricing model to include a subscription fee which I see as very costly. They should change their pricing strategy and license scheme, conduct market research and ensure that they provide the right product in the market at the right price.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is simple."
"BMC Helix Discovery has delivered a very good return, and we cannot stop using it at this moment."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution's most valuable feature is service modeling."
"The solution is definitely useful."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is easy to install and deploy."
"Start anywhere application modelling brings a fantastic opportunity for users to see what is where."
"A valuable feature concerns the ability to integrate with different solutions."
"Previously, our company had a lot of issues keeping track of all the data centers and the inventory, as well as the purchase orders. All of these were managed by other tools. The good thing about Device42 is that it can be used for all this together. We don't need to spend time checking many other tools and files."
"A big plus for Device42 was the auto-discovery. With it, we have updated devices, updated systems, and up-to-date systems."
"Device42 has everything in one place and links it altogether. This helps when you need to figure out where things are going wrong, where things are happening, or how everything is linked together."
"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."
"The import/export for bulk operations is a valuable and good feature."
"The solution's agentless approach to asset discovery is very important for us because installing agents on physical or virtual devices is not easy in our company. We have to escalate these kinds of things to different levels of security. Not having to install agents makes it easy for us."
"One of the most valuable features in my experience is the precise tracking of hardware devices and their locations registered in the solution. The solution allows to determine the exact placement of assets based on the building maps and the room details. This feature has allowed us to gain upper hand on the customers and provide them with a great satisfaction because they can visually see the arrangement of their assets within the organisation or building."
"The most helpful feature in Device42 was the import feature, where you can seamlessly import your information into the configuration database manager."
 

Cons

"The product is not fully automated."
"There isn't much that could be improved. The solution is pretty thorough, very easy to implement, and very easy to operate."
"The solution should have different portals and logins for each customer so only that customer's assets show."
"The improvement which we require is to delete the Internet service. Till some of the features are coming, like, internally side. If you are taking one server to model, there are a lot of usages like three structures per diagram is coming, and we have to do the man lot of manual work. Instead of that, whatever our requirement, we should be able to provide the servers and get the structure. So this is what we want to implement with such data."
"An area that can be improved is the IoT."
"The CMDB could be improved. Getting data from the CMDB is the greatest challenge."
"There are certain limitations in the mapping feature of the solution."
"BMC is agentless discovery, followed by hybrid discovery, which performs discovery across clouds, on-premises, and then dynamic service modeling."
"Mapping items wasn't as intuitive as importing in Device42, so this is an area for improvement."
"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 dependency mapping can be quite slow sometimes, if you've got a lot of things connecting to services. It can be very slow to build up the map."
"Since I was focused on deploying connectors and getting all the servers to be scanned, one of the biggest pains was when a job would fail, then the output (logging) was poor. For example, "Why did it fail?" In these cases, you get a generic error. It doesn't point you in the right direction and tell you why you got the error, which is really annoying. There have been times I asked, "Is there somewhere I can see a better log as to why is this failing?" That would be a really nice improvement."
"Configuring rPDUs in the data center for Device42 required us to add multiple discovery jobs. The rPDUs were referred to the ISPDUs and daisy-chained. They would automatically assign a unique SMP port, but Device42 didn't allow SMP ranges, so we had to create a discovery job for each rPDU individually. We submitted a feature request to mitigate that."
"The product must provide AI features."
"Device42 is a main part of our processes. We need reliability, not only in terms of the data but with the solution itself. It's really difficult when we have 10 minutes of Device42 downtime because none of our teams can work for those 10 minutes, and it's more time lost if there is longer downtime. An improvement would be to have a cluster implementation of Device42 to have high-availability and ensure that we don't have downtime in case of failure."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You need a license to use BMC Helix Discovery. The license is paid yearly, though I have no idea how much it costs."
"It's not a cheap product. But the benefits it delivers is that it's a fair price."
"The solution offers yearly licenses."
"We are on a three-year agreement with BMC Helix Discovery to use the solution. There are not any additional fees other than the standard license."
"I rate the pricing an eight out of ten. All BMC products are expensive."
"The licenses are very complex and quite costly."
"BMC is available for a reasonable price compared to ServiceNow — it's half the price."
"The price was fair compared to competitors. BMC is very affordable. There are optional consulting services to assist with implementation."
"We pay $100,000 per year."
"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."
"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."
"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 product cost is low. It is quite cheap."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Helix Discovery?
I like the artificial intelligence and machine learning that it uses in the solution. Because once the solution discovers all the assets, all the infrastructure, and all the dependencies between se...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Helix Discovery?
That's always a million dollar question regarding whether the solution is affordable or quite expensive; if you talk to the vendor, the pricing's great, but end users are always looking for a bette...
What needs improvement with BMC Helix Discovery?
Technical support from BMC is generally good. Resolutiion time is what's bothering me, as it's not always easy to get to the correct person or the right technical level needed to resolve the issue.
What needs improvement with Device42?
The product must provide AI features. It would be very useful if I could create datasets or queries from an AI interface.
What is your primary use case for Device42?
I use the solution for physical assets management, IT management, and application dependency mapping.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Discovery, ADDM, Atrium Discovery & Dependency Mapping
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Windstream Communications, News UK, Mercator Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR)
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 Discovery vs. Device42 and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.