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IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager vs SCOM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 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

IBM Tivoli Business Service...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SCOM
Ranking in Event Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager is 1.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCOM is 9.6%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SCOM9.6%
IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager1.8%
Other88.6%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer847356 - PeerSpot reviewer
Good technical support, and efficient for working with business data
We use this solution for working with data. The most valuable feature of this solution is the efficiency. This application should be made easier to use because it usually needs training and it is not easy to operate. We have been using this solution for fourteen years. The stability of this…
MarcMermuys - PeerSpot reviewer
Has efficient monitoring with robust integration capabilities
We use SCOM to configure different monitors using several management packs. It integrates systems like Active Directory and correlates them, and it is used for monitoring and managing systems SCOM allows integration of several systems, providing correlation between different systems such as…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the efficiency."
"It has good graphs of what is going on within the operating system.​"
"We are able to do problem determination on runaway processes."
"This solution allows us to standardize all of the reports for monitoring the network, so it helps a lot for auditing purposes."
"Setting up SCOM is straightforward and takes about an hour as long as you have all your firewalls and DNS settings in place."
"It is a user-friendly product that requires almost no maintenance."
"This is a product that does more generally than any of the competing solutions."
"I like the historical reporting of observer metrics."
"The solution primarily drives system information, and I believe it works fine."
 

Cons

"This application should be made easier to use because it usually needs training and it is not easy to operate."
"The solution should have more tools for monitoring the cloud engine versus on-premise."
"The dashboard features are not user-friendly for our management team, only for the technical department."
"SCOM is not as straightforward in terms of user interface or general experience, which could be improved."
"There could be more integration of SIM in the solution."
"The price could be improved."
"All of the areas of reporting are very bad and need to be improved."
"I would like to see more standard libraries for the market solutions, out of the box, that you don't need to do a lot of work on."
"SCOM's feature that notifies us when a server is down is not present in recent updates, which has weakened the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is the cheapest product available in the market."
"Our Enterprise Agreement includes the price."
"The pricing is good, and it's part of their system center suite."
"The platform is cost-effective due to our existing Microsoft support."
"SCOM is very cheap because it's included in the license for the System Center suite, which is around $8,400 per CAL."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."
"It is more expensive than the competition."
"If you have a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, then this is part of the agreement."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Business Service Manager, BSM
System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SSGC
Dialog Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager vs. SCOM and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,324 professionals have used our research since 2012.