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ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs SolarWinds Web Help Desk comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 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

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
668
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (5th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (6th)
SolarWinds Web Help Desk
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (29th)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
Mostafiz Miah - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Presales & Technical Lead at Elitbuzz Technologies Ltd
Automation has transformed daily request handling and now tracks every customer interaction
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus helps my team manage and resolve requests compared to previous methods as we previously managed things through paperwork and diaries. After deploying ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, whenever any customer request comes, we provide the customer a product demo if they ask about the products. We then convert that request to a lead, which is converted to a demo, and then to the product POC, allowing us to follow up every stage of the requests. Everything can be tracked from ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, whether at the closing stage or the initial stage. I use ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus daily in a unique way because previously everyone managed their own tracking system through their diary, but now everyone inputs data into this solution so that at the end of the day, we can get reports on how many leads we have taken care of and when they need to be taken care of. This information is visible from the ServiceDesk tool, and using the dashboard, we can easily identify it, providing an at-a-glance view. The best features ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers for my team include automating manual tasks, which allows whatever tasks we previously did manually to be converted into automatic tasks. Currently, they have also introduced Zia, a very helpful solution for us. Using Zia, we can search for anything, not only inside the tool but also outside, integrating it with ChatGPT and Teams, and it can integrate with other ManageEngine solutions as well as solutions such as Jira and ServiceNow. When we integrate our network monitoring solutions with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, it automatically raises an incident ticket and assigns it to the right team whenever any incident has occurred, which saves us time and reduces manual tasks. Previously, we had to communicate to the right people through mail or phone calls after an incident, but now the incidents are automatically converted and assigned to the relevant support groups along with the SLA. The integration with Teams allows us to raise tickets without logging into the portal, and we can see the ticket status and add comments through Teams, which is very helpful. Additionally, mail integration can automatically convert emails into tickets, adding further efficiency. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has positively impacted our organization, particularly in customer satisfaction. Previously, customers managed service requests, incidents, changes, and problems manually, but after integration, most of these processes are automated. This includes change requests that now follow a workflow based on organizational needs and ITIL best practices, making tracking incidents and requests much easier for end customers through scheduled reports.
GANESAN K - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited
Has supported daily operational workflows and improved approval management across departments
We actually do the reselling. We created a self-service portal for the customers, and this particular function does impact reducing IT staff workload overall. From technical standpoints, comparing SolarWinds Web Help Desk with TeamViewer, we need ease of configuration and ease of allocating, creating new fields or creating new layouts for many specific use cases. An organization can have a number of use cases when it comes to a ticketing tool. It's not a security solution; it's more of a service solution where you will be configuring the needed categories and needed fields for each department. On a scale of 1-10, I rate SolarWinds Web Help Desk an 8.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is easy to learn and with it, it's easy to replicate knowledge."
"It can be easily learned by anyone who spends a bit of time with it."
"A user can easily adopt this technology and utilize it, when compared to the other available resources in the market."
"My clients have seen ROI, as what would take them two to three days in work is now taking them two to three hours."
"Technical support for this solution is the quickest and the best."
"Automation Anywhere has improved our organization by allowing us to reduce the number of new hires, enable us to keep the same workforce, and increase productivity."
"The solution has helped us increase productivity."
"The most valuable feature is the object cloning."
"The solution is interactive and flexible so engineers find it much easier to work with than other tools."
"Its interface is most valuable. It is easy to use, and our customers find it amazing because of that. Nowadays, it is not only IT technicians who deal with tickets. People from HR and finance also handle tickets, and not all of them are tech-savvy, so it is nice for them to have an interface that they can easily relate to. They appreciate that."
"I am enjoying the report features, they are quite good."
"The tool's most valuable feature is task creation. The tickets get timestamps as well."
"Overall, its integration is good. There is a lot of integration that we have done. All alerts are coming to ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus. Its VIP feature is also very useful where you can specify who are our VIPs. When the service desk engineer picks up the call and gets the name, he or she knows that the person is a VIP and treats him or her accordingly. It also has a mobile interface. Anybody can use the app to log cases. It is easy for the end users as well as for the approving party. For the workflow, it is easier for senior managers to give approvals through the mobile interface."
"Give them the chance to implement a demo and put in a short practice and you will see how easy and effective the solution is."
"The strength is its pricing. It is easy to use."
"Even though I haven't been able to test other products and I've used a very old version of ManageEngine, I still think it met our requirements and that it has everything that we need to work as an IT department."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the assets management module."
"SolarWinds is scalable as far as adding devices and servers."
"The biggest advantage for SolarWinds Web Help Desk is the user interface; we were able to configure a different UI for administrators, employees, and HODs based on their hierarchy level."
"SolarWinds is a very good application that provides you with a detailed monitoring capability of your network and assets."
"It is easy to use."
"SolarWinds supports case and incident reporting. This includes logging incidents and tracking them efficiently. Additionally, it is compatible and approved by the ITIL foundation and standards, meeting world-class standards."
"A person who is not in IT, but has some good ITSM knowledge will be able to configure it directly on SolarWinds, and Manage Engine."
"Once installed, it runs like a charm and doesn't ever crash."
 

Cons

"If you are not on-premise, then you will need to have Citrix automation."
"I believe there is room for improvement in Automation Anywhere, particularly in their training programs, which need more development."
"I would like a better code migration solution, because this is something that we do a lot."
"Sometimes, the files are getting corrupted and this causes us a lot of trouble."
"We looked at the Bot Store initially and didn't find much."
"There are a number of current tools which can be improved because they have many limitations. Like some better controls in emails, and better support for features in Excel and PDF."
"I would like to see web and cloud-based platforms for future releases."
"I would like better support. The technical support is mediocre. The support is sometimes really good, and sometimes it is really bad."
"The only challenge we are having is integrating with Jira."
"It isn't very stable. Off and on, it has bugs, and that's why they have a lot of releases coming up."
"The product's asset management tool needs improvement."
"One downside to the solution is there are no native integrations between the systems."
"Some of the features which are currently available in the cloud version can be made available with the on-premise editions."
"The GUI can be improved. In terms of functionality, the change management part could be improved significantly due to limitations in that area."
"It is sometimes a bit slow. If it can have a quicker response time, it would be good for users, service desk engineers, and technicians. For service requests, they don't have an SLA for each priority. For a service request, the SLA of response or resolution is only one irrespective of the priority. SLA should be different for each priority. For a ticket, there is no response SLA for the service request. For resolution SLA, that is, P1, P2, P3, or whatever you define, you still have the same SLA. It should be different."
"I would like to see a clearer distinction between ManageEngine Cloud, ServiceDesk Plus, and ManageEngine Enterprise. That way, choosing the best one is better informed. Initially, I struggled to understand the difference, but I figured it out later."
"The technical team is not competent, or available, and they do not know the product."
"The program seems buggy to me. Not infrequently, when I click to add a Note, the Notes section disappears instead of opening a box to add a Note."
"This is a good solution, but the GUI is really old-fashion and needs to be updated."
"This solution needs to have mobile application support added."
"It would be good if there were training and tutorial videos on the Web Help Desk."
"The interface feels clunky to me compared to some other systems that I've used. I used ManageEngine Service Desk prior to this at my previous job and that had stuff like categories that we use that I don't see in SolarWinds."
"We would like to see automation included in the next release. We would like to eliminate the L1, and L2 support, by at least 80%. To do this, we need automation with AI (Artificial Intelligence) in combination with ML (Machine Learning)."
"However, it's a little outdated compared to newer products that include protection and detection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On average, a bot runner in Automation Anywhere can cost $5,000, while in Microsoft Power Automate, you can get most of the same functionality for $100."
"They give us a good deal on the licensing because we bundle and customize things. If you ask to get a bulk business deal, you will receive more benefit. If you take other products from the suite, like IQ Bot, you can also receive a deal on the licensing."
"We only deal in annual licenses. There are no pay-as-you-go licenses."
"I find the license pricing to be competitive and reflective of the pricing models throughout the RPA space, and I believe there is a lot of value in continuing to maintain the free community edition platform."
"We were paying approximately $30,000 for a year license."
"The solution is costly and the licensing is very confusing."
"There may be room for the product to be more competitively priced to excel in the market."
"Initially, they charged a premium, but now the rest of the vendors have increased their overall pricing and Automation Anywhere is not that high at this time. It's pretty viable."
"For 90 service agents and our need for a cloud solution with incident management and service request management, it annually costs around 12,000. If you need additional development or deployment support from the vendor, there might be an additional cost."
"We use the cloud model, which is subscription-based, and each year, the subscription fees seem to go up, making it a more expensive solution."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus' pricing is reasonable."
"The licensing is around $10,000 per year."
"I am using the free edition of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus. There are different versions available, such as professional."
"It is not an expensive solution."
"As compared to a lot of systems out there, it is more affordable."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus' price is very reasonable."
"They charge by the technician. It costs $117 per technician per year."
"When you compare with ManageEngine and ServiceNow, SolarWinds is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business162
Midsize Enterprise86
Large Enterprise565
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
Regarding pricing, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers three editions: Standard edition, Professional, and Enterpris...
What needs improvement with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
The biggest friction point or frustration I have run into with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is the upgrade risk and ...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
My main use case for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is that we are receiving tickets from multiple users regarding iss...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
Areas of improvement can be enhanced regarding configuration. We had the deployment metrics and usability, ease of us...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
For Zoho, we did OP Manager, Audit Security, AD Security and Asset Management, Patch Management. These things we are ...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
We actually do the reselling. We created a self-service portal for the customers, and this particular function does i...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
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Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Tranter IT Infrastructure Services Limited, Sterlite Technologies, averda, Radiology Associates
Instacart
Find out what your peers are saying about ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.