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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
25th
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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
216
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 0.7%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 24.2%, down from 27.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Thobile Moeketsi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Somnath Kand - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom integration and reporting lead to efficient ticket management
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow. Although there are child incidents or tickets, tracking primary issues or bugs within enhancements is not present. The reporting features in the new portal could be more user-friendly. While it provides options to minimize chart and image sizes, actual implementation doesn't always reflect these changes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"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 most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"The pricing of the product is quite good. It's not too expensive."
"It's great to do statuses or to review tasks."
"Discovery has reduced, on average, the time to build/deploy devices within our environment by one hour. This may not seem like much but it adds up over time. It also reaps additional time savings with its ability to capture changes through subsequent discoveries over the life of the device."
"It has an excellent capability to integrate different access points."
"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."
"Great that it's knowledge-based and you can use the flows in ServiceNow."
"ServiceNow was the first true enterprise to service management platform."
"It offers ready-built automation and simpler configuration for workflows."
 

Cons

"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"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."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"It's a great platform, but there's still room for improvement. As the solutions stands now, you do need a lot of previous experience to use it. It would be great if they could develop some use case templates. This would be beneficial for a small and medium-sized businesses."
"There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow."
"Some enhancements to the self-service platform would be helpful. That part is still a little barebone... Also, the mobile app is not bad, but it's limited."
"Their user interface is old-fashioned and outdated, and it can be more friendly for the eye. They can improve the user experience."
"Their cloud management is also not that great compared to other products."
"The setup was time-consuming and required a lot of internal resources."
"ServiceNow doesn't cater to the Middle Eastern market."
"When it comes to reference fields, there are some limitations where you aren't able to use them, like in relationship queries. In Remedy, when you click a menu, you get options directly, whereas here, if you use a reference field, it points you to a different form. So the UI experience totally changes for the end user."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"The licensing expenses are excessively high."
"The first impact for the customer is that it is expensive, but do not forget that it is a solution that includes infrastructure; a single cost, easy to justify."
"The pricing is on the high side, but if you look at the stability and option to work, it's kind of justified."
"In Tunisia, the companies find the licensing costs to be expensive."
"ServiceNow tends to be a little bit more expensive as compared to BMC Helix ITSM."
"I would say it is moderately expensive, ranging from six to seven on a scale of ten."
"While the option exists to pay for a monthly license, we are dealing with large enterprises and these typically involve multi-year licenses of ten or five years, at a minimum."
"It's sold as a less expensive solution, but it has to be highly modified. That's where you get into the cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
66%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
5%
Healthcare Company
3%
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

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: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.