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BMC Helix Discovery vs FireMon Asset Manager comparison

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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

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
661
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
BMC Helix Discovery
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (10th)
FireMon Asset Manager
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (14th), IT Asset Management (11th), Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) (6th)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
JP
Presales Manager at HCLSoftware
Comprehensive discovery has populated our CMDB and provides deep insight into asset relationships
The applicability depends on the customer environment. Usually it is straightforward to apply the policies. BMC Helix Discovery is seamless and has many plugins available. It is a good feature that they offer. I have heard about it, but I am not currently using it, though I know that they have that feature available. BMC Helix Discovery provides a lot of information that can be obtained from discovery, including the relationship between the CIs and how many CIs are orphans. The analytics capabilities are strong.
MC
Business Continuity And Disaster Recovery Manager at Cadence Bank
Continuous asset discovery has strengthened audits and BCDR planning but reporting needs improvement
FireMon Asset Manager supports my disaster recovery and business continuity planning through continuous real-time discovery, which is the foundation of everything. The fact that it's not a point-in-time scan, but ongoing, passive and active discovery, means my inventory is always current. That's what makes it useful for BCDR, where stale data is dangerous. The best features FireMon Asset Manager offers include leak path detection, which is genuinely valuable. It identifies rogue internet connectivity, unauthorized connections, and paths in and out of the network that shouldn't exist. In a bank, that's both a security concern and a BCDR concern because undocumented network paths create recovery risks I don't know I have. The topology mapping is also excellent. Being able to visualize how assets connect to each other and to the network helps my BCDR team understand dependencies between systems, which is critical for sequencing recovery procedures correctly. If I'm recovering a system, I need to know what it depends on and what depends on it. FireMon Asset Manager has positively impacted my organization primarily on our audit and examination posture. Before FireMon Asset Manager, when examiners asked about our asset inventory, I was presenting data I knew had gaps and hoping nobody looked too closely. Now I can walk into an examination with a continuously updated, discovery-validated asset inventory and answer those questions with confidence. That's a qualitative shift, but it has real consequences. Examination findings in banking are not trivial. This shift has led to measurable outcomes, such as reducing the time to compile our annual BIA asset inventory from roughly three weeks of manual effort down to essentially a report pull. That's significant staff time saved. I've also seen our CMDB accuracy improve. FireMon Asset Manager's continuous discovery keeps finding things that manual processes miss. And from a regulatory standpoint, I've had two examinations since deploying FireMon Asset Manager, and in both cases, the asset inventory questions that were previously a weakness in our program were answered cleanly. That's the metric that matters most in a regulated banking environment.

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 easy to implement."
"We have been able to reduce our number of FTEs."
"The dashboards are excellent."
"It has helped us a lot with our digitized work, and we have automated a lot of the bank's processes."
"Automation Anywhere has made it very easy for you to install, they've got the tools to make it very simple for you to create a quick, small application and to get out there."
"This solution is easy to use and generates a quick response."
"The most valuable feature is the power of AI Technologies involved in Automation Anywhere's IQBot - such as Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Fuzzy Logic, and Machine Learning."
"This is a solution that I recommend."
"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 services, it learns how it works. So, it learns to predict when a problem is going to happen. It becomes predictive in an autonomous way."
"The solution is very stable and powerful."
"The most valuable feature is the automated service mapping."
"BMC Helix Discovery is very intuitive."
"I'd recommend BMC Helix Discovery to others because I've been working with it for the last eight years and my experience with it has been good."
"A valuable feature concerns the ability to integrate with different solutions."
"BMC provides great support. As managed service support, they are gold."
"In terms of the tools that BMC sells and tools like this on the market, there is no match."
"FireMon Asset Manager fills a genuine gap in network security visibility that many organizations underestimate."
"It offers a single platform for managing firewalls of different brands and simplifies policy deployment and auditing. It helps push policies to different firewalls, and it also helps with policy auditing."
"The most valuable aspects of FireMon Asset Manager are its integrations and its ability to passively monitor the network for unknown assets."
"Now I can walk into an examination with a continuously updated, discovery-validated asset inventory, and I can answer those questions with confidence."
"FireMon Asset Manager supports my disaster recovery and business continuity planning through continuous real-time discovery, which is the foundation of everything."
"The most valuable feature is the change modules. Whenever there is a change in the firewall, it automatically reflects on FireMon."
 

Cons

"I would like the support to be faster. Their response time is one to two days. Their customer care could be faster."
"The solution doesn't offer all the capabilities that we need, so we have to use it in conjunction with other software."
"As of now IQ Bot only takes/fetches the record of the places that we have marked. e.g. Invoices fields that are dynamic in nature are very difficult to fetch the data from the scan copy. If this feature gets added, it will save a lot of time for developers."
"They need to make the solution more robust."
"I am not technically inclined, and it involves many steps for a process to function properly. It requires a lot of work initially to design and develop a process. I find it somewhat challenging. If you take time to understand it, it's not too difficult, but it seems complicated at the beginning if you're not a technical person."
"I would like a couple more features where I can talk and the line comes up automatically. I can just put on a mic, like in "Ok Google". With "Ok Google", I can tell it to please open an Excel spreadsheet with the header read. If this is there, then I don't even need to sit on a computer, I can just dictate my commands and it will automatically come up."
"Excel functionalities, the macro interface can be improved in the next release of RPA platform Automation Anywhere. Functionalities such as maneuvering on the excel worksheets, increased capability to manipulate formulae, and other Excel functionalities will give Automation Anywhere and edge in the RPA platform category since most financial applications use a lot of Excel and macro sheets for their calculations and postings."
"Citrix is only in the development stage. Automation Anywhere could put some time into improving this more."
"BMC is agentless discovery, followed by hybrid discovery, which performs discovery across clouds, on-premises, and then dynamic service modeling."
"What would make BMC Helix Discovery better is if it had more client-side discovery features, for example, printers and desktops. Right now, it's focused more on data center discovery, so if it had additional features focused on the client-side discovery, that would be great. In the next release of BMC Helix Discovery, I'd like more client-side discovery features such as desktop discovery, printer discovery, and other IP-based client-side discovery features. The solution can discover desktops and printers, but there's still room for improvement on the client side."
"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."
"The solution should have different portals and logins for each customer so only that customer's assets show."
"It would be nice to see more updates to the solution."
"While I consider the solution to be good, it should better be able to integrate with other solutions."
"I would like to see a lower price and better technical support."
"The monitoring tools could be more stable."
"While passive discovery remains important, active retrieval of asset details would be valuable, and this functionality is starting to be implemented, as I've observed in recent updates but it is not fully there yet."
"The discovery process could be improved. If incorrect credentials are entered, it should give an error message. That would make our work easy rather than having to troubleshoot why the issue is occurring."
"The biggest friction point or frustration I have encountered with FireMon Asset Manager is the support experience being inconsistent."
"It is not very good at monitoring the Check Point firewall, but it works very well with other firewalls such as Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Cisco ASA."
"I find that FireMon Asset Manager's reporting customization is more limited than I would like."
"FireMon Asset Manager can be improved in reporting customization, which is more limited than I'd prefer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We paid separately for the Runner and Creater components. The final cost depends on the structure of your environment."
"We generally follow the Gain-Sharing Pricing model, which enables the customer to start getting the RPA benefits right from day one of their implementation."
"Our annual licensing costs are around $100,000 a year."
"The Automation Anywhere license is affordable and not complex."
"The cost for scalability is much cheaper than developing a new system."
"The pricing that we received from Automation Anywhere in the beginning was very economical for us. We've seen a lot of benefit from what we spent to what we're receiving. From the beginning, it's been a very low-cost implementation for us."
"The price of Automation Anywhere is a little higher than some of the competition, such as UiPath. However, depending on the use case and other factors we are able to receive some discounts."
"Our annual licensing costs for the entire company are $100,000."
"The price was fair compared to competitors. BMC is very affordable. There are optional consulting services to assist with implementation."
"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."
"You need a license to use BMC Helix Discovery. The license is paid yearly, though I have no idea how much it costs."
"I've heard that the solution was expensive earlier but is now much cheaper than its competitors."
"The licensing fee is very low."
"It's not a cheap product. But the benefits it delivers is that it's a fair price."
"BMC is available for a reasonable price compared to ServiceNow — it's half the price."
"Operating cost is actually high compared to other products, actually. It's a little expensive only, but it's very good than other products."
"FireMon is more expensive than other brands but justified by its comprehensive feature set. It includes several functions that might require additional subscriptions in other solutions."
"FireMon Asset Manager's pricing has been reasonable and has worked well for us from a licensing standpoint."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Outsourcing Company
25%
Comms Service Provider
18%
Construction Company
8%
Insurance Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business161
Midsize Enterprise82
Large Enterprise558
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
What needs improvement with BMC Helix Discovery?
The interface is quite old and can be outdated.
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix Discovery?
BMC Helix Discovery is used for discovery of the assets and configuration items so that you can populate the CMDB.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon Asset Manager?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing reveals that it's not inexpensive. The license cost is manageab...
What needs improvement with FireMon Asset Manager?
The biggest friction point or frustration I have encountered with FireMon Asset Manager is the support experience bei...
What is your primary use case for FireMon Asset Manager?
My main use case for FireMon Asset Manager is continuous network asset discovery and visibility. We have a complex hy...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
Discovery, ADDM, Atrium Discovery & Dependency Mapping
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Windstream Communications, News UK, Mercator Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR)
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Discovery vs. FireMon Asset Manager and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,076 professionals have used our research since 2012.