Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps vs IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 7, 2025

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 Operations Manage...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
2nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
AIOps (6th)
IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
Ranking in Event Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps is 8.3%, down from 13.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is 7.8%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps8.3%
IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus7.8%
Other83.9%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

SN
Solutions architect at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Have improved operational agility and reduced issue resolution time through automation and proactive insight
I have worked in an R&D environment where we have continuous research and continuous development focus on how to improve specific aspects of a specific offering, whether it is a product or a service or a combination of product and service with BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps. I have seen over time, over the past maybe decade or maybe a couple of decades, different areas of improvements. There is always room for improvements. As of now, I think having that level of automation, the integrative nature where the solution parameters bring residency across protecting data, across bringing better functionality across the operational environments, really brings a great deal of admiration. I do not see any immediate area that could require a lot more advancements, but I am sure BMC will be looking to maybe improving certain criteria depending really on the given spectrum of a specific environment. Maybe looking into an ad hoc assessment for certain environments could be suitable to address what areas could be addressed differently. Regarding needed improvements for BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps, people always love to see more criteria of functionality, but those are things that maybe could be addressed in different ways. The flexibility of dashboards is really fantastic. Maybe that is one area that everybody might have a different way of looking at a dashboard, but customizing dashboard capabilities has always been an area of discussion. Outside of that, the sustainability of the features available today, given the spectrum that each version brings different type of updates and what have you, could utilize a lot more than a single opinion. It could maybe take a group discussion, it could take cross-functional type of sessions to really brainstorm about what areas will be in need of improvements. The overall solution brings, in parallel to ITIL 4 continuous improvement strategies, a great traction on how we can focus on continuous improvements at large. Hopefully we can see more in the future. Having the capabilities to integrate with microservices architecture really brought the cost reduction benefit right at the top of the scale for many agencies where they grant flexibility, realizing only needed resources at the cloud, and the deployments have been very agile, bringing everybody into a fast and unique agile sense of doing business. Improving the business confidence has been also another area that we had utilized a great amount of feedback in that regard.
SS
Senior Consultant AWS at Cognizant
Good GUI and accuracy in processing but needs automated incident management
There is a complex setup and configuration process. It requires experience. We've had integration capabilities. We have to assess the specific needs or objectives of the organization, including scaling of deployment, and integration points, before implementation. Then, we need to design the architecture, including server specification networks, configuration, and storage requirements. We also need to consider the environment setup, hardware, projecting, and virtual machines. We need to ensure that network settings, firewalls, and security protocols are configured to allow communication between the components. Once you have all of the requirements laid out, it will only take five to six hours to set up. It does depend on the level of connectivity. If you are connecting remotely, it may take a bit longer. I set it up for three environments: development, testing, and production. One person can set up the solution themselves. If you are doing a NetCool suite of products, it may take two to three resources. You may need to do some maintenance in terms of additional patching or upgrading.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would advise other customers to use BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps because it really helps reduce time and cost, and I receive excellent customer support from BMC for this product."
"The service operations monitoring features are valuable."
"BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps has positively impacted my organization by reducing our emergency changes and flipping our problem records from reactive to proactive, so we're getting to things faster before they impact users."
"BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps' predictive analytics positively impacted proactive problem-solving capabilities. It has been the most interesting part of the solution! It provides detailed analytics that gives you a deep understanding of your infrastructure and recurring issues/problems. It really predicts the problems."
"BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps deserves a ten out of ten."
"That gave us a very positive image as an agile vendor that came in and brought a highly valuable solution that drove cost reduction, that drove better return on investment, that drove more business confidence and highly automated spectrum and also it did improve overall cybersecurity aspects of the operations as well."
"It is evolving more and more into artificial intelligence."
"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"Offers very good event/alert drill-down and statistical reporting capabilities."
"Probes are the best feature because they are well written which rarely requires you to write additional rules. These probes monitor activity within your environment."
"The monitoring is the solution's most valuable feature."
"The biggest plus points for me are the configurability and scalability of the solution, as well as the multi-tenancy of the platform."
"It is an easy-to-use solution."
"The most valuable feature is the event management capability."
"It is customer-centric. Customers can access the event list from their location or desktop and view the event. There is no need to go and connect to any other server and run events to have a view of all the events happening in the environment. We get a good response from customers about this feature and the main architecture of NetCool. Its processing is very good. Deduplication and correlation functionalities are good in this solution as compared to other solutions. A big advantage of NetCool is that it also supports multi-layered protocols. We can receive multiple events from different protocols like UDP, HTTP, and those events can be captured in NetCool."
"It's good for managed systems. The end query on the user interface is good. You can view lots of charts and graphs."
 

Cons

"The product must provide more information and dashboards."
"I feel that the tool's stability has some scope for improvement."
"My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps is that licensing in some cases can be ambiguous, but broadly speaking, it's slightly on the expensive side, though it's very high value."
"The solution's GUI and some patching-related information are areas with shortcomings where enhancements are needed, though I believe they are areas that fall under BMC's roadmap for the future."
"The initial setup of the solution is complex."
"The biggest challenge is ensuring the customer has sufficient ITSM maturity to get the most out of the solution. BMC Helix is very sophisticated, and some clients lack that internal process maturity."
"Customizing dashboard capabilities has always been an area of discussion."
"The cost of the product is quite high. They should work to adjust their pricing models."
"There should be an easier-to-understand model, more of a flat-structured model rather than different tiers of licenses which complicates licensing."
"The web portal and typical event controls are a little outdated."
"Its integration could be better. They should provide an easier integration for all the monitoring stuff, and it will make things easier for us. Currently, there is a complexity in integrating it with a vendor application, and we have to use another tool to integrate it with a vendor application. To integrate some applications with NetCool, I need to install an IBM tool on top of it. It would be good if they can provide an API or any kind of interface that we can leverage while developing a new protocol interface or application. We should be able to use an API or interface with NetCool. Its GUI can also be better. As compared to other tools, it is not user friendly, and it is not easy to do stuff through GUI. Whenever we do anything on the GUI, it takes time. They need to focus on the GUI part, especially the dashboard. They should focus on how users can effectively drill down from one box to another. The visual appeal of the dashboard is as important as the data and functionality."
"They could enhance the visibility to give us a unified view of our entire IT infrastructure."
"The solution needs to invest in the development of a knowledge base and use of AI services for providing event resolution and intervention directions."
"Its technical support team takes longer to reply."
"The solution has limitations in database integration as it cannot integrate with databases other than IBM DB2."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product’s price could be improved."
"BMC solution is cheaper than ServiceNow, its main competitor. So, I'd rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"Its license cost is a little bit more than other solutions. Our customers expect a standard market price that is comparative to other products. For each and every NetCool OMNIbus component, we have to purchase a separate license. These components are not free with the product."
"You have to have the right level of budget to afford this solution."
"It is a costly solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Event Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
16%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Non Profit
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps?
BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps' predictive analytics positively impacted proactive problem-solving capabilities. It has been the most interesting part of the solution! It provides detai...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps is that licensing in some cases can be ambiguous, but broadly speaking, it's slightly on the exp...
What needs improvement with BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps?
I have worked in an R&D environment where we have continuous research and continuous development focus on how to improve specific aspects of a specific offering, whether it is a product or a se...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
I would rate the pricing for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus as three, where one is a high price and ten is a low price.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
Based on my experience and my colleagues' feedback, IBM can improve IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus in automation with respect to using AI, as it lacks considerably compared to other tools. The integrat...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
My current use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is for monitoring the networks.
 

Also Known As

BMC Helix Monitor
Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Grupo Moura, Goodman, Aspect, Telefónica Colombia, Fujitsu
Consolidated Communications, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Capgemini
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.