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

IBM Maximo vs ServiceNow comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM Maximo
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (1st), Billing Software (5th)
ServiceNow
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
225
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (1st), IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Maximo and ServiceNow aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Maximo is designed for Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and holds a mindshare of 15.2%, down 28.9% compared to last year.
ServiceNow, on the other hand, focuses on IT Service Management (ITSM), holds 15.8% mindshare, down 24.5% since last year.
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Maximo15.2%
Oracle Enterprise Asset Management8.5%
IFS Cloud Platform7.3%
Other69.0%
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow15.8%
JIRA Service Management7.3%
BMC Helix ITSM5.7%
Other71.2%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Antony Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Java Software Engineer at GPA
Asset management has become streamlined and decision-making is now driven by lifecycle data
The best features IBM Maximo offers are that it is very simple to deploy on OpenShift using Ansible playbooks. It also has excellent support for integration, is simple to configure, and the asset register is very straightforward. Work management and managing inventory are seamless. In terms of integration support, I have used preventive maintenance, work generation, accurate work execution planning, tracking actuals, and I can easily integrate with other tools and systems. IBM Maximo Suite gives me a single place where service cycles are standardized and tied to compliance. IBM Maximo has positively impacted my organization as it has been a very useful tool. It reduced human error by moving away from pen and paper-based scheduling. It saved cost by minimizing unexpected downtime of assets, with approximately 50% of time being saved. We have also reduced overwork among staff by removing redundant information and smoothing task flows. It helps us scale our team without micromanaging small issues.
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

"It can be particularly useful for power line operations, enabling linemen in the field to gather information and send it across the country as well as different parts of the world."
"IBM Maximo is the best software for assets management."
"Its capabilities let us organize our work."
"We were doing all kinds of paperwork for every type of order and to maintain our assets but with the use of the IBM Maximo application, we can automate a lot of the processes."
"The Preventive Maintenance feature, especially in its inspection routines and KPI abilities, is valuable."
"Has a powerful audit combination that helps achieve high accuracy."
"​Maximo is very stable. We really do not have problem with stability.​"
"Work order management and scalability enables the businesses' needs to be met."
"It is a very promising product. They have a new release every six months. They're investing quite a lot, and you can do many creative things with the product. If you know how it works, you can have stricter rules in the product."
"The flexibility of the product in regards to configuring and customizing it to meet the company needs within a few clicks."
"It allows us to filter the data, create graphs, and get detailed reports."
"ServiceNow is one of the best tools in the industry for production support people, for incident and production ticket management."
"The flow designer feature of ServiceNow has had the biggest impact on our productivity because it has helped me reduce manual efforts by creating automation and robotics."
"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."
"The most valuable features of ServiceNow for me are its ticketing and reporting capabilities."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
 

Cons

"Initial setup is a longer process because Maximo is bigger and has more processes."
"It needs full-service visibility. There are a lot of things that are hard for users to find out. For example, the Service Catalog is not too friendly. You really have to know what you're looking for."
"​Maximo is a big system, so the initial setup is complex."
"There are always ways to improve and make things better."
"This solution could improve by integrating or embedding finances, charts of accounts, and invoicing."
"It was very slow due to the lagging issues. So that was kind of frustrating, considering how slow it was while functioning."
"I feel that the interface is a little too complicated with a large number of fields to enter."
"The latest version is slow due to the power it requires."
"It's not user-friendly by default, but it can be customized to be customer-friendly."
"The solution should offer better security when it comes to storing data."
"It is annoying that ServiceNow keeps on changing back to Quebec every six months."
"We do a lot of relatively advanced stuff for the size that we are, but ServiceNow itself is so big and to some extent, there is a significant amount of complexity that you have, a big learning curve I would say, in order to really get on board."
"We are struggling with the scheduling part, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a ServiceNow issue. It could be the way we have configured it. We don't have it configured in a way where you can schedule a support call with our end users. We are looking for more automation in the box and the chat feature."
"Before implementing this solution, you should have the ITSM model in place for chain management requests. That is a prerequisite because you cannot perform tasks without it."
"I find ServiceNow to be a little bit clunky. If I need to report an issue they have a number of different options. I can report an issue, I can ask a question, I can make a request and it has varying levels of importance or levels of attention required. I find that what's required to submit is not always clear."
"ServiceNow doesn't cater to the Middle Eastern market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You pay for what you get. There are lots of options depending on how you would like to implement Maximo."
"$USD700 per agent user."
"The concurrent user license is much more effective in management and cost-wise, as it is more suitable for maintenance management."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low and ten is high, I rate the pricing a nine. The price is very high."
"Explore the possibility of using DB2. You will avoid the cost of SQL Server or Oracle licenses."
"​Explore internal processes in order to evaluate the correct number of users in each Maximo module, then evaluate the different offers of pricing and licensing.​"
"Where available, concurrent licenses can be more cost efficient and provide more flexibility."
"IBM has changed the licensing policy. As I understand now, they are going from a complex way of licensing to a more simple way of licensing."
"I know that it's not too bad because people continue to use it and they are happy to renew up their contract."
"In Tunisia, the companies find the licensing costs to be expensive."
"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
"This is a pretty expensive product, so the licensing could be better."
"They could be more competitive with their licensing."
"It's sold as a less expensive solution, but it has to be highly modified. That's where you get into the cost."
"The first impact for the customer is that it is expensive, but do not forget that it is a solution that includes infrastructure; a single cost, easy to justify."
"The mandatory minimum is US$ 20,000 for licensing."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solutions are best for your needs.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise168
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Maximo?
The only thing that I need from IBM Maximo is more simplicity. The application has been designed in a way that it is serving the enterprises. It needs to be simpler for the SMEs, or for the compani...
What is your primary use case for IBM Maximo?
There are different use cases for IBM Maximo that I work with mostly. We use it for complete asset management. Anything that comes into the asset repository, asset management, asset evaluation, any...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Maximo?
AWS is more recommended for IBM Maximo. You can go into Microsoft as well, but AWS is preferred. IBM also has their own cloud as well.
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.
 

Also Known As

Maximo
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., DTE Energy, Swedish Match, Projetech, Fingrid, East Coast
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 IBM, Infor, Prometheus Group and others in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM). Updated: February 2026.
884,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.