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OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB vs ServiceNow CMDB 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 Universal Discover...
Ranking in Configuration Management Databases
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow CMDB
Ranking in Configuration Management Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Configuration Management Databases category, the mindshare of OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB is 8.6%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow CMDB is 22.8%, down from 35.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow CMDB22.8%
OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB8.6%
Other68.6%
Configuration Management Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Prajwal Kewat - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Engineer at Hitachi Systems, Ltd.
The UCMDB Tool is easy to manage IT assets and is auto-discovery features; But for ease of use the tool proper it needs to be documented in detailed fashion.
Based on my experience with the UCMDB tool, I have faced challenges while discovering servers (nodes). We need to define the IP list for discovery in RTSM and run jobs. However, over time, whenever new assets are added, we must manually add the new IPs in RTSM and run the jobs again. From the agent's perspective, we need to provide the Data Flow Probe IP. This can be done in one of two ways: we install the agent at the server (node) level, define the IP of the Data Flow Probe, and then our Data Flow Probe will capture the data from the agent and send it back to UCMDB. This method allows us to eliminate the step of manually adding the IPs in RTSM. In a dynamic production environment where changes are continuous, we need to stay updated on new servers (nodes). Ideally, the auto-discovery feature should automatically detect the new CIs (nodes/servers) in the environment and notify the IT personnel. This process could be achieved without the need for agents, or with a one-time agent setup.
reviewer2782440 - PeerSpot reviewer
ServiceNow Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Automation features and integrated service mapping have streamlined incident and change management processes
There is probably room for improvement in ServiceNow CMDB. I'm so immersed in projects and solving direct customer issues that I don't think too much about potential improvements. Maintaining an accurate and up-to-date ServiceNow CMDB can be challenging due to incoming data from various sources, but ServiceNow has been developing small AI components to help with data discrepancies and deduplication recently. They have also improved integrations with other tools, providing many out-of-the-box integrations to different monitoring tools and CMDBs, which previously required coding experience for custom integrations. They are moving towards a more low-code or no-code approach, which is part of their goal as a company.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Precision, trustworthiness, reconciliation, and user-friendly presentation are the key features I value most."
"Large telcos with a history of mergers and acquisitions will benefit from this technology by discovering exactly which components are located where in their data centers, how they're connected and what their status is, facilitating consolidation and transformation of data center infrastructures as well as reducing mean time to resolution in case of incidents."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the discovery."
"It's a governance oriented tool with a very good data model."
"It can discover almost everything and creates relationship among discovered CIs, along with creating topology modeling."
"It scales easily with future expansion."
"UCMDB is one of best discovery softwares available in the market; it can discover almost everything and creates relationship among discovered CIs, along with creating topology modeling."
"Micro Focus UCMDB is built for stability and is the only solution which can support up to 60 million CIs."
"The stability is about the same as other platforms. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. The scalability of the solution is good."
"The initial setup isn't too complicated."
"We like that this solution allows us to easily track the relationship between our CI and the IT asset module, for troubleshooting purposes, or to check the impact of an incident site."
"I like ServiceNow CMDB's discovery tools. If you have discovery tools and the discovery tools are built around a philosophy of mapping, then we can implement a top-down architectural mapping of the elements in the upper structure and create your CI."
"The product's initial setup phase was simple."
"The solution has a single database, architecture, and data model."
"The most valuable feature of ServiceNow is the user interface because you can customize or configure it directly from the user interface by using the mouse."
"Technical support for ServiceNow was perfect."
 

Cons

"Improve the GUI and documentation."
"Some of the UI could always be improved, but that is personal taste."
"You are lucky to get over the first level, then you are happy with the support."
"The implementation could be simplified."
"Mobile/iPad Apps version of the UCMDB Browser would be a step ahead, which should have features, like viewing CI information, ownership, etc."
"The implementation could be simplified. It is very complex and should be for a mature organization."
"Making it simpler to set up and understand would be a big improvement."
"Can be rather expensive to implement (for smaller companies)- can be support intensive - requires a lot of project resources to push toward implementation - requires a number of people to operate- as game changing technology requires a mature IT service organization, numerous resources for project management, design, implementation, evangelization - requires serious upper echelon management backing (sponsorship)"
"The tool is not user-friendly. It has a lot of features and you can get lost in it."
"ServiceNow CMDB may face performance issues if we try to make the solution too large by adding more CIs."
"There's room for improvement in terms of integration."
"I don't think it's a failure of Service Now or something that they don't offer, but I haven't seen any training modules."
"The pricing of ServiceNow products is suitable for large companies; it is a bit expensive for medium ones."
"It depends on the implementation, but the out-of-the-box product tends to be fixed on the support people. From a linear standpoint, I would like to see a certain number of fields on a table and a related list to describe the support personnel."
"The reporting function could be more advanced and has room for improvement."
"I would like to see them partner with some key scanning technology companies to give them a real end-to-end offering."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is competitive."
"Compared with other solutions, I would say that it's more expensive especially since we have an on-premise version and an older implementation."
"In comparison to the cost of other solutions, you get value for your money with ServiceNow CMDB. It could definitely be cheaper though."
"The product is pricey."
"I would like it to be cheaper. If you've got a large environment, it can get quite expensive quite quickly. You still get a return on investment, but everybody has a tight budget. In terms of licensing, everything is pretty much known upfront. Being SaaS-based, there are no real additional gotchas that we came across."
"The product price falls on the higher side of the spectrum."
"The market sees ServiceNow as the Ferrari in terms of pricing. It's at the very top, and its cost is very, very high."
"It is really expensive. I don't know actually how much it costs, but in 2016, when a client decided to move from an old solution to ServiceNow and had to choose a supplier for ServiceNow, I had heard that it could cost $10 per hour, which is really expensive. I am not aware of any additional fees to the standard licensing fees. There is no standard ServiceNow solution. When a company wants to acquire ServiceNow, they already know which module they will choose. In a basic package, you would have Service Catalog, Incident Management, and Change Management. These modules are usually required in an IT company."
"It is always fluctuating. It seems to change every six months. Every time they come out with a new iteration, it changes. It is pretty complicated, and they should improve it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with ServiceNow CMDB?
I believe that related to the solutions in the Now Assist platform, we can put more autonomy on that. Some reconciliation can be automated. AI Assist is the current improvement now. I don't have an...
What is your primary use case for ServiceNow CMDB?
I primarily work with ITSM, HR, SPM, AI, Now Assist, CMDB, and CSDM modules, covering almost all of these areas. I use the integration with ServiceNow CMDB with all the processes that we have imple...
What advice do you have for others considering ServiceNow CMDB?
I help customers evaluate their CMDB health. We use the CMDB health to make that analysis, to see the relationships, what is missing with the processes they have, and any mis-ownership issues. So, ...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB, Micro Focus Universal CMDB, UCMDB, HPE Universal CMDB
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

China Merchants Bank, NNIT, Alfa-Bank, Sprint
Wayfair, Siemens, Allianz, Experian, Vitas Healthcare
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB vs. ServiceNow CMDB and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.