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Cherwell Service Management vs ServiceNow 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
28th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
27th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow
Ranking in Help Desk Software
1st
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
225
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 15.8%, down from 24.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow15.8%
Cherwell Service Management1.7%
Other82.5%
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.
MT
Manager of Security Engineering & Architecture at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Seamless data integration and advanced automation improve service delivery efficiency
I think that nothing needs to be improved with the product; you just need the user to commit and spend appropriate time to overcome that learning curve. Once that is done, the product itself is pretty wonderful. I've seen a very nicely built interface with ServiceNow, and I've also seen the ugliest version that feels outdated. ServiceNow does allow that team to exist. They should modernize their fonts and their layout, the UI friendliness. They did introduce AI, chatbots, and AI on the back end, so that's wonderful and extremely useful if you train it. If you don't train it, it's pretty useless. Assessing the impact of ServiceNow's automation on service delivery times is complicated. The engineers who operate on ServiceNow find it isn't straightforward because the data set is accessible by everybody. The problem is that understanding how to manage that data set requires an enormous amount of engineering skill set to run the product. I would not hand the key to the customer; I would highly recommend that ServiceNow take control of that. Instead of offering support for the software, they should offer administrative support for the software. They should provide professional service or some kind of support system that allows us to use their product at a faster pace. I'm sure they offer something, but it's often outrageously expensive, or they rely on another company to resell their product and offer professional service. It makes no sense in my opinion, and they should offer the team at the front to help customize the product to fit each company's needs, as every company has different demands and forms of submitting a request that need adjustment over time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"Implementing CSM has made us very efficient and we're now able to plan changes and the steps required for implementation."
"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."
"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable."
"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."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"With it, I can do everything, so I think only our imagination can be the limit of ServiceNow."
"We have found change management and CMDB to be very useful."
"The solution integrates well with other products."
"Everything about the schema, including the design of ServiceNow, is great."
"If it is a high priority, they will respond very quickly. If it is a low priority issue, it might take some time, some three or four days. I would rate the technical support as a 10 out of 10."
"I like the reporting aspect of it. It helps us know where we stand regarding the types of issues we're receiving... It also shows us trends. That enables us to possibly predict an issue that might come up in the future as well as what is happening right now. We will like that feature. With it, we can either avoid certain issues or know where we need to focus more regarding the service we provide."
"You can put information in or export it out quickly, which is very useful when you have weekly or monthly reports."
"It's ease of use, extensibility and just the ability to take it out of the box and use it with minimal custom configuration."
 

Cons

"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"Agile delivery should be supported."
"Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly. The shopping cart experience is also terrible - you submit and go straight to the cart, you can't continue shopping or see your overall cost."
"The support from the actual manufacturer is poor."
"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."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"The setup wasn't as straightforward or easy as it should have been."
"The Software Asset Management feature can be improved. We would like to see more features for the Software Asset Management functionality. Its price can also be better. It is currently more expensive than other solutions."
"There is a need to enhance ticket details visibility on the portal, such as displaying SLA information, which currently requires development effort."
"I would like to see more functionality in terms of custom workflows, not impacting the overall platform health."
"The scalability needs improvement."
"The customization that we are doing for the needs of our organization are difficult to do and could be improved."
"Complexities in the organization made the initial deployment complex."
"There's always a room for improvement in terms of the ServiceNow UI. For customers, the UI is something that is a continuous improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"ServiceNow's pricing is comparatively higher than Helix's."
"This is a pretty expensive product, so the licensing could be better."
"There are licensing fees."
"The license model is based on a number of fulfillers (active users who play some role within the ServiceNow functionality). Therefore, you can serve as many end-users as you want, without additional costs."
"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
"The product cost is higher than that of other vendors."
"The mandatory minimum is US$ 20,000 for licensing."
"We know that ServiceNow is not cheap, it's more expensive than other solutions. But we are trying to increase our ability to handle tickets so that the cost per ticket is less."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Energy/Utilities Company
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise168
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?
The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...
Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?
Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow    
Find out what your peers are saying about Cherwell Service Management vs. ServiceNow and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.