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Cherwell Service Management vs Clarity SM 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

Cherwell Service Management
Ranking in Help Desk Software
29th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
25th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Clarity SM
Ranking in Help Desk Software
18th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
20th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Clarity SM is 2.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Clarity SM2.3%
Cherwell Service Management1.8%
Other95.9%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Thobile Moeketsi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Sasria SOC Ltd.
Having everything in one location has significantly improved our efficiency and reporting
We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges. Even though it uses our Windows login, we still have to be on VPN. The product should be able to log tickets directly from system to system. We haven't got there yet and I'm not sure it's possible but it would determine the product's capability to integrate with other systems.
Türker Kara - PeerSpot reviewer
Application & Software Architect at Turkiye Finans Participation Bank
Quite good back-end architecture for end users but the API is very, very bad
Our company uses the solution for system, program, service request, change, and knowledge-based management.  We perform CMD authorizations and use a lot of integrations for our in-house or third-party applications. We also use Salesforce automations and Microsoft orchestrations.  We have about…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable."
"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"The best feature is the ability to create functional dashboards, where the IT manager can interact with its data through the dashboard using the drill down feature."
"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable. It is also pretty stable, and it can be as scalable as you want."
"Implementing CSM has made us very efficient and we're now able to plan changes and the steps required for implementation."
"It gives us one central location to know, not only who is contacting us, but what they're contacting us for, what application they're contacting us for."
"It's fairly easy to use, from a UI standpoint."
"It has helped us to organize a lot of our assets, so we have configuration items to attach to our change management. We can have tickets for change management and set them aside for an approval process."
"The ticket system makes sure that everyone gets taken care of, and that makes for a better customer experience."
"The technical support responds quickly and provides a good service."
"CA Service Desk is built around the ITIL methodology and would help to improve all organizational processes starting from incidents/problems/request, knowledge management, CMDB, etc."
"Time sheets are a powerful tool."
"Compared to others, I like the ease of Service Desk; it's easy to maneuver around in, it's very user friendly, and things make sense where some other products we looked at were very confusing."
 

Cons

"Agile delivery should be supported."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"The support from the actual manufacturer is poor."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges."
"Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"They need to improve their mobile interface, as well as features regarding the extension of the mobile access to the end user."
"Although I wasn't involved in the initial setup I have been involved with upgrades. They have been fairly complex. We've had some issues with upgrades where we had to roll back and get some things fixed. Some things that we ended up tracking back to not following directions right, but then other things we've run into issues."
"The methodology introduced for Level 1 analysts needs to be taken to Change Management Process."
"The SDM administration and customisation needS deep information about architecture and vendor support continuously."
"There are some issues regarding the knowledge base and the configuration manager."
"CMDB and the user interface, especially for extracting reports, could be improved."
"​We would like to see them revamp, or rework, a lot of their configuration management database structures. We hear that is on the horizon."
"Ticket event and notification creation and management is cumbersome and has not improved over the many versions I have worked with."
"The part of notification methods and satisfaction surveys remain almost unchanged."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"There is a subscripted needed to use Clarity SM. The price of the solution could be less expensive. ServiceNow is less expensive and BMC Helix is priced similar to Clarity SM."
"It is a bit expensive, but you definitely get what you pay for. It is worth it!"
"I don't see anyone other than large companies being able to afford this system."
"The pricing is based on a subscription model."
"Clarity offers a perpetual license. Customers purchase the license once and then pay for maintenance. CA provides a subscription model as well. Both models are available for our customers."
"The solution is quite reasonable compared to other solutions in the market."
"I think pricing of this model is suitable for growing corporations."
"Pricing is simple, as it’s per concurrent analysts."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise66
 

Also Known As

No data available
CA Service Desk Manager, Clarity Service Management, CA Service Management, Unicenter Service Desk, CA SDM, CA Service Catalog, CA Business Service Insight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
Banco G&T Continental City of Perth, FEMSA, Fujitsu, Manpower, Muslim Commercial Bank - MCB, Punjab National Bank, Santa Clara County Social Services, Stefanini
Find out what your peers are saying about Cherwell Service Management vs. Clarity SM and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.