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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
3rd
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
9th
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 (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the IT Asset Management category, the mindshare of BMC Helix Discovery is 7.4%, down from 8.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Device42 is 5.7%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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 solution is very stable and powerful."
"The best aspect of BMC Helix Discovery is its flexibility. You can perform scanning at any time, and it provides substantial data for extraction."
"The most valuable feature is Windows proxy. We now need to install an additional link proxy server in Windows. The proxy is available as an outpost in the Elastic store. That is the advanced feature is added. There are many other features which can be used once we discover them. One time I was scanning the servers and all, going to data from additional based on the additional features, including advanced data like score upper display data successfully discover servers. There are many things good things that can be implemented using it while we haven’t installed those yet."
"The tool's accuracy of the results we receive looks promising in general. Its values are more than 95 percent accurate compared to other clients or different tools. I would say that Discovery offers a valuable mechanism to discover information."
"The initial setup is simple."
"BMC Helix Discovery comprehends the infrastructure you've procured and deployed within your environment."
"The solution is definitely useful."
"BMC Helix Discovery is very intuitive."
"The Insights+ component is useful for us because it does business application mapping and helps us visualize it. It saves us time because we don't have to hunt for data."
"The REST API abilities enables us to run scripts that pull information from our servers about software, storage, etc. Anything we need is pushed through REST API to the Device42 server and reflected in the report it generates."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution has some very good relational capabilities that show us how certain devices relate to each other and how some of our environment actually works together."
"The continuous asset discovery is good because it means not having to manually input all the small data, such as IP addresses, leases, etc. It helps and saves us a lot of time."
"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 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."
"The most valuable feature was the ability to look up the different assets and see the different attributes that each one has, as well as being able to compare them to other assets."
 

Cons

"It is very complicated to use."
"We would like updates more often."
"If the dependency maps can go live and we can work through the process with a click, we're reaching the stage where issues are identified and mitigated. It would be ideal if we could utilize it to reduce vulnerabilities or address any other feedback."
"Management of its own application infrastructure and integrations with other BMC tools."
"I would like to see the ability to scan some of the newer cloud platforms. I know that BMC has them on the roadmap, and they are coming soon, but they can't come fast enough. Being able to scan more of GCloud, Alibaba Cloud, or whatever the public clouds that our customers are buying, we need to make sure that Discovery can find them as well."
"An area that can be improved is the IoT."
"The support from BMC Helix Discovery can improve, it takes a long time before we receive any feedback. It can take days to months sometimes."
"The solution is definitely useful."
"If they could make it so their remote connector could do as much as 10,000 devices, that would be better."
"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."
"If I want to delete an asset from a cabinet it does take a while. And if I'm doing it in bulk — say, for example, if we have one cabinet that has 20 servers in — if I want to remove all 20 servers, I have to do them individually, which is a bit time-consuming. If there were a way that I could just bulk-remove everything from there, that would definitely save some time."
"The breadth and depth of the solution's discovery of IT asset information means the system does most of the work, but they need to work on improving the database discovery part, especially for Oracle Exadata."
"While the automatic IT asset discovery is great, the first time using it can be confusing when you are configuring the SNMP. I don't remember for sure but I don't think it said "SNMP community," it said "password". The first time I used it I was thinking about communities but the tool said "password," and when you say "password" in SNMP you are thinking about SNMP version 3. This is the only thing that is confusing, although there were some devices that were not included in the discovery."
"I would like to see API management as an additional feature in the tool's future versions. It will give more API security."
"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."
"When servers have two network adapters, automatically discovered will be only one network card because the other one is a backup. Device42 has some problems to find the other connection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have a perpetual license for the solution."
"The solution offers yearly licenses."
"I rate the pricing an eight out of ten. All BMC products are expensive."
"BMC is available for a reasonable price compared to ServiceNow — it's half the price."
"You need a license to use BMC Helix Discovery. The license is paid yearly, though I have no idea how much it costs."
"Operating cost is actually high compared to other products, actually. It's a little expensive only, but it's very good than other products."
"I've heard that the solution was expensive earlier but is now much cheaper than its competitors."
"The licensing fee is very low."
"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."
"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."
"It's in the top-three most expensive solutions in terms of cost, but it has all the features that are needed."
"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."
"The problem with using other vendor, like BMC, is the pricing. The price is so horrible and nobody wants to pay this money."
"The product cost is low. It is quite cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
The price of BMC Helix Discovery is licensed by asset. It is challenging to maintain licenses, as every piece of equipment is considered a license. We pay attention to the growth of assets. The pri...
What needs improvement with BMC Helix Discovery?
The query language is somewhat challenging to learn. It uses a Berkeley database, and the query language is not easy to master for performing complex queries.
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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.