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IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management 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 NetCool OMNIbus
Ranking in Event Monitoring
3rd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (13th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (15th), AIOps (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is 7.4%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is 6.8%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow IT Operations Management6.8%
IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus7.4%
Other85.8%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Salman - PeerSpot reviewer
Performance & Monitoring Supervisor at Saudi Telecom Company
Aids in network performance monitoring and management
I am working as a customer, mainly using IntelliQ and another product, IBM NetCool, Watson AI. These products are used for monitoring network performance and management.  The primary use case involves network performance monitoring, and it is compatible only with IBM DB2 IBM Tivoli NetCool…
reviewer2755671 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Significant enhancement in operations with powerful discovery and analytics, yet pricing structure poses challenges
ServiceNow IT Operations Management provides out-of-the-box dashboards. Along with the dashboard, it also provides the Operations Workspace, which is very useful for operations teams. There is a functionality called Performance Analytics, which we are also using to develop some dashboards for the senior leadership and operations team where they can perform trend analysis of alerts and events happening across the infrastructure and application landscape. These dashboards are really useful here. ServiceNow IT Operations Management's biggest plus point is that it is a platform. ITOM is just one module that ServiceNow IT Operations Management offers, but they provide seamless integration of ITOM with their other modules such as ITSM, where we can leverage the AIs for discovery, perform impact analysis, which essentially helps to enhance the overall IT operations and reduce the downtime and MTTR.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Difficult to implement ( more resource and timing) but flexibility in implementation."
"It is customer-centric. Customers can access the event list from their location or desktop and view the event. There is no need to go and connect to any other server and run events to have a view of all the events happening in the environment. We get a good response from customers about this feature and the main architecture of NetCool. Its processing is very good. Deduplication and correlation functionalities are good in this solution as compared to other solutions. A big advantage of NetCool is that it also supports multi-layered protocols. We can receive multiple events from different protocols like UDP, HTTP, and those events can be captured in NetCool."
"Overall, this is a great tool and one that I recommend but it depends on the cost."
"Very stable tool and good for all types of event integration and automation."
"It is an easy-to-use solution."
"It's good for managed systems. The end query on the user interface is good. You can view lots of charts and graphs."
"The most valuable feature is the event management capability."
"The monitoring is the solution's most valuable feature."
"The solution is very capable and user friendly."
"The most important features of ServiceNow IT Operations Management are the discovery service mapping and orchestration."
"Their Event Management is very good."
"The most valuable feature of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is the user interface."
"It is a stable solution. I have not experienced any system outages during my time using the solution."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a stable product."
"I like the tool's CMBD connection with Discovery. The solution is also flexible."
"It is a product that is familiar for a lot of users."
 

Cons

"Areas that could be better include the fact that the solution is only on-premises, lacks AI capabilities, and support response times could be quicker."
"Yes often problems appear after resolving a previous one."
"The solution needs to invest in the development of a knowledge base and use of AI services for providing event resolution and intervention directions."
"There should be an easier-to-understand model, more of a flat-structured model rather than different tiers of licenses which complicates licensing."
"Its GUI can also be better. As compared to other tools, it is not user friendly, and it is not easy to do stuff through GUI."
"The solution has limitations in database integration as it cannot integrate with databases other than IBM DB2."
"Its integration could be better. They should provide an easier integration for all the monitoring stuff, and it will make things easier for us. Currently, there is a complexity in integrating it with a vendor application, and we have to use another tool to integrate it with a vendor application. To integrate some applications with NetCool, I need to install an IBM tool on top of it. It would be good if they can provide an API or any kind of interface that we can leverage while developing a new protocol interface or application. We should be able to use an API or interface with NetCool. Its GUI can also be better. As compared to other tools, it is not user friendly, and it is not easy to do stuff through GUI. Whenever we do anything on the GUI, it takes time. They need to focus on the GUI part, especially the dashboard. They should focus on how users can effectively drill down from one box to another. The visual appeal of the dashboard is as important as the data and functionality."
"A lot can be improved in this product considering the performance."
"There are times the application has some performance issue, but it could be because of our network. There should be something done to resolve this."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management can be improved by focusing on adoption, as some companies still use other tools, and we had to onboard them initially, addressing challenges such as data migration and consistency, especially since we have 14,000 users in my group company utilizing this for multiple purposes, emphasizing workflows defined so that onboarding processes can be streamlined into a single tool."
"Lacks the ability to do its own monitoring."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is very expensive. The list price is around $40 per node per month for the high-end, all-inclusive version."
"The out-of-the-box reporting feature has room for the improvement, it can be make more user friendly as other tools."
"The vendor support rates between five to six because it takes a lot of time to get issues resolved, whether minor or major. For minor issues, the team takes a month's time to provide a fix."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is not very affordable. It is affordable for organizations with a minimum of 5,000 users plus."
"The solution’s licensing cost could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a costly solution."
"Its license cost is a little bit more than other solutions. Our customers expect a standard market price that is comparative to other products. For each and every NetCool OMNIbus component, we have to purchase a separate license. These components are not free with the product."
"You have to have the right level of budget to afford this solution."
"The price of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is expensive."
"The solution offers yearly licenses and a subscription model for add-on features."
"It is expensive. It is around 10 Euros per server per month."
"The solution is costly compared to the products offered by its competitors."
"There are additional costs, you have to pay more for everything."
"This solution offers good value but comes at a very high premium. Pricing could be reduced by 10 to 20%."
"We obtained discovery licenses at about seven dollars Australian per unit, which we found to be reasonable and competitive."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a costly solution. I'd rate the price at ten, on a scale from one to ten with one being the lowest and ten being the highest price. Some clients do have a problem with the price, but most find that the solution is worth the cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
12%
Construction Company
6%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
I would rate the pricing for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus as three, where one is a high price and ten is a low price.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
Based on my experience and my colleagues' feedback, IBM can improve IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus in automation with respect to using AI, as it lacks considerably compared to other tools. The integrat...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
My current use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is for monitoring the networks.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
Regarding pricing, while I initially felt the prices were high when we moved, I now see that it is reasonable considering that we are not just using an ITSM tool; we are improving processes and com...
What needs improvement with ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
ServiceNow IT Operations Management can be improved by focusing on adoption, as some companies still use other tools, and we had to onboard them initially, addressing challenges such as data migrat...
What is your primary use case for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
As an implementation expert and former CIO, I handled implementation from an IT best practice perspective for different companies.
 

Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
ServiceNow ITOM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Consolidated Communications, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Capgemini
servicenow, TransAlta, NATS, Symantec
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,877 professionals have used our research since 2012.