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BMC Helix ITSM vs Hornbill Systems Supportworks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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 ITSM
Ranking in Help Desk Software
4th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Hornbill Systems Supportworks
Ranking in Help Desk Software
31st
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
36th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 11.1%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hornbill Systems Supportworks is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Fairoz Gadad - PeerSpot reviewer
Development team is quick to address bugs or shortcomings in their product
BMC's technical support team needs to improve. Right now, the problem over here is we are not getting the exact answers on time. Their engineers are mainly based in the US or Israel, and we get comprehensive dedicated support. Some of the Indian customer service representatives are also outstanding. Unfortunately, in the past six months or seven months, I've been getting brand-new engineers. Either they're not entirely aware of most cases, or they don't know how to troubleshoot further. So for any product to be stable and work correctly, BMC must ensure that customer service is excellent. Even though if your product is a hundred percent, we'll have problems marketing it to our customers.
it_user1262703 - PeerSpot reviewer
Excels in call logging and call flows but is limited in terms of scalability
I'd advise others to map their processes out before starting with the solution. Hornbill has recently generated a new version of its product and it meets some of the requirements that we would have been looking for. It's a bit more scalable, a bit more responsive to a customer-focused model for support, and they've improved a lot of things like process flow and self-service. In terms of rating the solution, it's difficult to grade. It really depends on the size of the organization that's trying to use it as that tool. One of the reasons why we're looking to shift is because we've grown quite a bit over the years that we've had it, which makes it difficult for it to meet our demands. However, for an organization the size of what we were when we started our journey with it, I'd rate it ten out of ten. Where we are now, with our company size and needs, I'd rate it six out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Customer support is always fantastic and willing to help. No matter what time of day we have a problem."
"We use the solution's Discovery tool to discover our assets, and we've used the ticketing tool for years."
"If we consider major players like Ford or BMW, their core focus is manufacturing products like cars. To ensure smooth operations, any arising issues, be it security concerns or issues within departments like HR or finance, require a swift resolution. This is where the product comes into play. It provides a platform for raising tickets and obtaining quick solutions."
"This product has helped us to maintain our OLAs (Organisation level Agreements) and SLAs (Service Level Agreements) by tracking incidents, requests, problem records, and change requests, all in the form of tickets."
"We have seen year over year customer satisfaction improvement for the last five years."
"Automatic orchestration is the most valuable. The feature for designating some cases or incidents to the right PM for resolution, first call resolution, and change management are also important. The self-service feature and knowledge base resolutions are helping the customers in resolving issues rather than opening tickets."
"Provides a clean front-end for our users to log requests and has rich ITSM functionality."
"Initial setup is straightforward, and if you follow best practices, then future enhancements will be smoother."
"The solution's business process flow is quite strong. Its reporting is quite good. The standard, basic ITSM functionality like call logging and call flow, for example, are areas the solution really excels in."
 

Cons

"It can have more features for hardware discovery and hardware information. The integration with IQ operations management should be streamlined. ITSM and ITOM should be more integrated, and there should be better integration from Helix Discovery to Helix CMDB. There were some issues regarding this integration, and they were difficult to resolve in big environments. We have a lot of devices and users to manage. Therefore, the integration should be better."
"In User Group sessions held by BMC in India, I mentioned the challenges with vast documentation, making it difficult to find the right information quickly. However, we lack access to a sandbox for in-house development, which was very helpful for hands-on work with new features."
"Our middleman provider limits the available functionality so we cannot even do our own analytics."
"Integration could be better. If something doesn't work well with some tools and operations, then management becomes difficult, so you have to integrate other tools."
"The search feature and the dashboard could both be improved."
"The initial setup of BMC Helix ITSM is complex because it has different integrations with other tools. Additionally, it needs to be integrated with the active directory and have different databases. The environment will dictate how difficult the process is."
"There are plugins to the solution that have come onto the market, so the solution should also be updated in terms of administration to increase efficiency."
"Regarding reporting, when sharing information with leadership, we utilize BI support and data or more analytical tools. These tools provide accurate and comprehensive reports, covering various aspects. Reports are either sent directly through email or automated using scripts. It would be beneficial to integrate similar capabilities into BMC for future use. Many applications we work with already have a centralized virtual automation tool, such as Control M, but manual effort is still required. Improvements in automation for accurate and efficient reporting in BMC would be valuable."
"It's worked well for us for a significant period of time. However, we are kind-of outgrowing it at the moment. We're struggling a bit with making it meet our requirements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are licenses to use this solution."
"It's a yearly subscription but there are a couple of customers who go for the monthly subscription."
"The price of BMC Helix ITSM could improve their price."
"It is too expensive for a small business."
"It is not very expensive and not very cheap. It is somewhere in-between. Some of the features are more expensive. There are also additional costs. If you want to use most of the features, you need to pay more."
"Just make sure you really sit down and look at what you will be using per user, therefore you will not be surprised with a big bill. You do not want every user having every license, it really is not needed."
"While purchasing, try to negotiate on per user licensing costs, associated maintenance, and purchase 20% more then what you think you should have. Bulk is always cheaper."
"It is costly, but it is well worth it."
"Our organization pays about $40,000 annually. There are ongoing consultancy costs and if we want to change anything, we're charged a day rate. Other than that, there are no other extra costs involved in working with the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Helix ITSM?
If we consider major players like Ford or BMW, their core focus is manufacturing products like cars. To ensure smooth operations, any arising issues, be it security concerns or issues within depart...
What needs improvement with BMC Helix ITSM?
In User Group sessions held by BMC in India, I mentioned the challenges with vast documentation, making it difficult to find the right information quickly. The recent move to a new platform is bene...
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix ITSM?
I am currently working as a BMC Remedy developer. I have been working for over ten years on the BMC platform. My company uses BMC Helix ITSM for IT service management processes.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy
Supportworks
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
Aylesbury Vale District Council
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix ITSM vs. Hornbill Systems Supportworks and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.