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OpenText Service Manager [EOL] 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

OpenText Service Manager [EOL]
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
217
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 (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

MEKKAB Raouf - PeerSpot reviewer
Excellent pricing with great change management and service management capabilities
We started with version 9.3, and now we're on 9.6 with the full solution, including the CMS. They have lots of options. They propose a full solution for technology and IT service management. We are a telecom company. We are a leader in the market, and therefore, we need to have all details about our own environment and assets. So far, Micro Focus answers all our needs. I'd advise new users to go directly to the SMAX solution, the last, last version of Service Manager. If they are a technical company or information technology company with engineers and developers, they can use it on-premise. If they don't have such competence in the company, they can ask for the solution on the cloud. It is easily available on Microsoft, Amazon, or Google clouds. I'd rate the product nine out of ten.
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

"A valuable feature for us is that we have an ordered way to handle all the cases that we can handle with the infrastructure."
"We can have all our requests and incidents registered in one system."
"It's easy to scale."
"Service Manager does what it should, but it's quite outdated."
"The solution will streamline productivity and also improve automation. That would bring efficiency as well the ability to handle a big number of enterprise-wide service needs. Productivity and collaborative capabilities are some of the key benefits."
"Sometimes, customization is simple. The version we are using now has a nice interface."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is fine. It's a good solution for small accounts with minimal reporting. Micro Focus is a good option because you don't have to worry about the budget."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Very easy to implement and to respond to my clients' needs."
"Overall, I rate ServiceNow 10 out of 10."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the possibility of the application development cap so that we can digitize workflows."
"It's great for keeping everyone informed in the company - not just IT. Everyone becomes aware of change requests and incidents so the entire company is on the same page."
"HR Case Management and Customer Service Management are two of the key areas which clients are using."
"In financial management, this platform has the infrastructure allowing us to expand the way we want to. For example, it gives you many business rules and budget models that you can use to optimize your workflow. It does not put you in a box. Additionally, integrating this solution with other platforms is extremely easy to do."
"I like the ease of use."
"Primarily, we use it for incident management and change across the landscape. It is the virtual repository for our incident management processes. It gives us visibility about what's happening from the change management perspective across our CABs, including our enterprise CABs."
 

Cons

"With the new version moving toward the codeless configuration is good, but it's losing flexibility."
"Service Manager is at the end of its life. The architecture, performance, and look are all way behind."
"I think the best recommendation to Micro Focus would be to increase awareness and the marketing for this product."
"We aren't able to take emails that come in and turn them into tickets, especially when it comes to attachments. When an email has an attachment, like a screenshot, it is a very cumbersome process, and it does not work very well. I shouldn't have been paying technicians to cut and paste attachments from an email into the ticketing system. It should do that automatically. Other solutions are able to do that. This is something that needs to be improved. Test manager and knowledge management areas are probably amongst the worst parts of this solution. We try to use this solution for knowledge management, but it is not user-friendly. Therefore, it has limited ROI as you need to spend time to try and fully capitalize on the knowledge management system."
"Pure cloud-based native functionality is lacking."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is not very great. It would be better if it had more features. When it comes to features, BMC tops the chart. When it comes to usage, people use BMC more."
"It needs good integration with the configuration database, that's lacking at the moment, It's not that good."
"The user interface is very clunky. It's only now beginning to be a web-based interface, but for now it's still very clunky."
"Loads slower than expected, and its user interface needs improvement. Support for this product also needs to improve on their response time."
"An area for improvement would be the accessibility of downloaded and compressed files."
"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."
"I find the way you need to attach things like screenshots and stuff is a bit gimmicky. I'm a casual user. I'll use it once every two months and only when I have an incident that I need to report. You don't get a lot of experience with it when you're just using it once in a while like that. Therefore, it needs to be more intuitive so that you don't have to re-learn how to do simple tasks as the way to do certain things just isn't obvious."
"It became kind of complex to set it up without a general lack of knowledge of the particular feature-function capabilities. Features and capabilities could have been explained better to the end-users."
"I would like to see a mobile version of ServiceNow."
"We can't update bulk tickets using a simple query language. Jira lets us update hundreds of tickets with one command. In ServiceNow, you need to select each task separately to close them. The dashboards could also be more user-friendly. Monday.com has better dashboards."
"There are sometimes challenges with the portal being a bit confusing for new users. The implementation of the portal and workspaces is quite different, and improvements in this area would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license is not cheap."
"I pay for Service Manager on a yearly basis, and the price is reasonable - I would rate it five out of ten."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is a little cheaper than other options. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee."
"HP Service Manager has moderate pricing."
"I would say that identify your requirements and pay for the support to implement and test those requirements, and then hope that you did a good job because the cost of their service is fairly expensive."
"The price of the solution is comparable to industry standards. For the features that we received, it is reasonable."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is an expensive platform."
"Some time ago it was expensive, but large companies have special contracts. It's enterprise prices, and we're talking about millions per year."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten. The pricing for ServiceNow is based on a SaaS platform with annual contracts. However, it may not offer much flexibility for adjusting usage in the short term."
"The platform offers a free trial, by providing a free developer instance once you sign up."
"It's sold as a less expensive solution, but it has to be highly modified. That's where you get into the cost."
"The solution is priced for medium to enterprises sized businesses. However, it is expensive compared to competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
25%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
10%
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Micro Focus Service Manager?
The product's technical support services need improvement.
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Service Manager?
We use the product for infrastructure, profile, and incident management.
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
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Service Manager, HPE ITSM, HPE Service Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

resultspositive, Globicon
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 ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: March 2025.
845,960 professionals have used our research since 2012.