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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
224
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
Information Technology Service Manager & Technology Integration DevOps at Djezzy
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.
SP
General Manager at sPerception IT
Adopting flexible workflows with customized automation delivers measurable benefits
There are things that I would like to see improved in ServiceNow, such as the pricing, as it is a very costly solution compared to other tools. Additionally, its presence in the local market is very limited; in Pakistan, for example, I don't see any vendor or distributor of ServiceNow available. They need to increase their sales spectrum globally so people can easily access them and engage them for client meetings and more. From a functionality perspective, the features in ServiceNow are acceptable as, at the moment, the ITSM modules rank highly, being 13 plus Pink Elephant certified, which is a good aspect to have. When providing advice to users, I would suggest they consider making strategic decisions about their per user pricing since it is very high. In our region, people normally start with 5 to 10 users, but the per user price is quite steep. Moreover, ServiceNow does not charge based on data uploaded or downloaded, so they should reconsider their pricing and data policies to align better with the financial capabilities of the region.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It gives us better understanding and control of service management."
"It's easy to scale."
"We can have all our requests and incidents registered in one system."
"It's pretty well-structured in modules."
"It helps to register things, to see the changing parts, and to correlate incidents."
"Sometimes, customization is simple. The version we are using now has a nice interface."
"The workflow engine that standardizes and globalizes the process steps. It drives people through the process by standardization and automation."
"Its flexibility and ease of customization are its most valuable features."
"ServiceNow is a cloud-based platform, so people won't need to worry about investing on hardware to host it. Being on the cloud, it is available 24x7. It's scalable, stable, and multifeatured, with a straightforward setup and good technical support."
"The thing that I like most about it is the easy integration with the CMDB. I'm able to look at the CMDB for applications and develop my assessments and attestations based on the application and point them at that application owner. So, I can really automate the whole thing."
"For change management, I find the CAB workbench very useful. I haven't seen any other solution that has a CAB workbench or advanced automated solutions for a change advisory board. ServiceNow also has the Workflow Engine which works very well and is very intuitive."
"The product's integration functionality in the change management module has significantly improved efficiency in our organization."
"We can keep track of incidences. There is a bucket where we keep all our information, and it enables communication between stakeholders. It helps us collaborate with each other."
"ServiceNow offers a range of ITSM, IT incident management, and PRCPs."
"It helped me save time—it would be more than 30% in time savings, with fewer man-hours and improved service delivery through automation capabilities."
"Simplicity of Change Manager."
 

Cons

"There should be some front desk provided or some options to let our users serve themselves, because we have about 5000 servers and 400 applications."
"It needs good integration with the configuration database, that's lacking at the moment, It's not that good."
"I don't see anything lacking."
"Service Manager would be improved with access to automation."
"There's a lot of manual work, which is error prone and time consuming, in how the code gets transported from one system to the other."
"It needs to be easier to use for the end users because one problem we had was that we are handling different kinds of cases."
"It, still, has a bit of more of improvement possibilities in the codeless part. But, I can see that they are working on it, so that's quite good as well."
"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."
"Vulnerability management could be improved. Also, integration with tools such as Microsoft Defender ATP needs improvement."
"They can maybe improve the area of agile project management. They do have user storyboards and other things, but we kind of lean on Jira for that work. This is perhaps an area that could be looked at a little more."
"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."
"When we are using the solution on mobile phones on their networks the performance is reduced with a delay of approximately 8 seconds. There is less delay using the desktop computers connected to the WiFi or to the network directly."
"It's moving at a very fast pace. It is difficult for developers or engineers to keep up with it. That's the only issue."
"if I consider from the IT operations management side, ServiceNow is pretty premature on some things, especially the discovery, while the other tools like Micro Focus and BMC Remedy, those that have been in the market for quite some time. ServiceNow is evolving itself in the discovery piece of the future."
"It's not very secure, it's web-based, and I prefer Remedy. Both the security and the web interface could be improved."
"The customization that we are doing for the needs of our organization are difficult to do and could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 pay for Service Manager on a yearly basis, and the price is reasonable - I would rate it five out of ten."
"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 license is not cheap."
"In Tunisia, the companies find the licensing costs to be expensive."
"ServiceNow is a leader and its pricing is quite good, quite competitive... Sometimes some plugins are not priced reasonably but, generally, the platform itself, its modules, are priced reasonably."
"The price is okay for us. It's reasonable."
"I would say it is moderately expensive, ranging from six to seven on a scale of ten."
"Initially, the licensing model ServiceNow came up with was very good. But now, from a licensing perspective, they are changing their model day by day. It is becoming a bit expensive for customers."
"This is a pretty expensive product, so the licensing could be better."
"It is very expensive because it is a big organization. You have to pay for additional things."
"I am from Brazil. For Latin American markets, ServiceNow is very expensive as compared to other vendors, such as VMware."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Performing Arts
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
 

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 Enterprise166
 

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: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.