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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
6.8
Number of Reviews
228
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

DL
Senior Consultant Project Management & Transition at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
It does what it should, but it's quite outdated.
I rate Micro Focus Service Manager four out of 10. I wouldn't recommend it. I would suggest ServiceNow. There may be solutions better suited for smaller companies. There are always alternatives because the architecture isn't terribly complex. The architecture is the same across solutions, and everything is linked. There are no modules to be bought from some other company in the past and integrated. ServiceNow also its disadvantages, but if you compare it to Service Manager, I can safely say ServiceNow is the future and Service Manager is the past.
Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Structured workflows have improved SLA compliance and now support prioritized incident handling
I think the licensing and pricing of ServiceNow is quite expensive compared to other tools. For large organizations, it is acceptable, but specifically for small and medium organizations to track incidents or change requests, ServiceNow is quite expensive. Sometimes performance can be slow when workflows and integrations are configured for complex tasks. For advanced customizations or advanced features which we rarely use, the documentation is not up to standard. The documentation needs to be improved for advanced customization features. However, the platform is stable overall and the features are quite good. The user experience and performance concerns I mentioned are areas I want to be improved. When many workflows and interactions are configured, performance is slow. For the features it is providing, it is quite expensive. If these performance features are improved, we can easily pay that price and get the return on investment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Incident management is the most valuable because we're using it to manage tickets for an accounting system."
"It's easy to scale."
"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."
"I advise others to use the HP Service Manager because it's a powerful and capable enterprise solution."
"The application's performance reached a completely different level; so it's quite fast."
"Service Manager does what it should, but it's quite outdated."
"It's a complete service management suite; a complete management product used by the company worldwide for us."
"Overall, I have seen a substantial ROI when it comes to reporting: a faster response and also the assignment of tickets."
"We definitely see a return on investment, particularly regarding time saved, as automation has enabled us to move invoices to customers much faster than before, saving five to ten days of cycle time for each invoice."
"What I like the most is that it's a common service data model and the fact that everything is available on one platform."
"It is user-friendly and simple to use."
"They have thought through it, and not just the whole domain in the platform but now they have connected it to the business side, the business needs and the processes, the work that people do down to the technology."
"ServiceNow is a very powerful tool that can perform a lot of different functions."
"In terms of the most valuable features, it's nice to have everything in one place. Things are easy to follow up on. ServiceNow provides that workflow. I know at some level it is in the pipeline and then if I need to follow up, everything's there. Those are the key benefits of ServiceNow."
"Now we have invested the time in the CMDB, we've invested the time in a portal and catalog items and now we're moving towards automation and things, and we're able to stay a lot more current a lot faster because ServiceNow is doing the work to keep the platform updated, whereas we can just continue to provide value that is specific to us and what we're trying to do."
 

Cons

"We struggle with and the simplicity of getting reporting data at a high level, and output is not where it needs to be for us."
"My big concern is that HPE made a decision in its last dot release to change the way that these improvements and enhancements are done by the end user."
"The user interface is very clunky."
"I think the best recommendation to Micro Focus would be to increase awareness and the marketing for this product."
"The greatest issue for us is to understand the roadmap."
"The interface could be better."
"The solution does not interface well with other products and is difficult to implement."
"I think one area which is the most painful from my point of view is if you need to integrate a lot of the tools, and being able to make that a lot more seamless."
"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."
"There is a need to enhance ticket details visibility on the portal, such as displaying SLA information, which currently requires development effort."
"Integration capabilities can improve."
"HR Service Management is one module that needs a lot of improvement because it's a pretty new module. It was introduced in the last two years. It's becoming more mature day by day, but there is a lot of scope for improvement in that module."
"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."
"We did some custom branding and it was a nightmare."
"The biggest complaint I have is that the ServiceNow search engine is not very robust."
"I find some features are difficult to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license is not cheap."
"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."
"I pay for Service Manager on a yearly basis, and the price is reasonable - I would rate it five out of ten."
"HP Service Manager has moderate pricing."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is a little cheaper than other options. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee."
"I am from Brazil. For Latin American markets, ServiceNow is very expensive as compared to other vendors, such as VMware."
"The price could be a little lower for the solution. Many of my customers have issues with the licensing process, they have to make it easier and straightforward."
"There is an annual subscription to use this solution."
"It is an expensive platform."
"The pricing is reasonable and affordable, making it suitable for businesses ranging from small to large scale."
"I'm not aware of any additional costs. I'm pretty sure that the current client is paying just the licensing fee per user. I do know that they've got some support agreement with ServiceNow, but I don't think that is broken out or specific to Project Management. It is just inclusive."
"The solution is expensive."
"The platform offers a free trial, by providing a free developer instance once you sign up."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Construction Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise171
 

Questions from the Community

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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

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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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: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.