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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 June 2026, in the Configuration Management Databases category, the mindshare of OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB is 7.9%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow CMDB is 21.6%, down from 35.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow CMDB21.6%
OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB7.9%
Other70.5%
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

"Micro Focus UCMDB is built for stability and is the only solution which can support up to 60 million CIs."
"The auto-discovery feature is great."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the discovery, knowing what assets are on the network and the configuration of items for it."
"Precision, trustworthiness, reconciliation, and user-friendly presentation are the key features I value most."
"This product discovers, maps and reports information about our configuration on a daily basis and is capable of being our source of truth for audit purposes."
"It's a governance oriented tool with a very good data model."
"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."
"The product is easy to set up."
"The initial setup isn't too complicated."
"We were previously using spreadsheets to keep track of everything. ServiceNow CMDB has enabled us to consolidate all this information into one place, which helps with audits and reporting. It also improves visibility."
"As I work based on the IT governance framework, what I like best about ServiceNow CMDB is ITSM, so incident/service request management. I also like that it can be useful for project portfolio management."
"It has helped in tracking hardware and software and reducing overall costs."
"There is a lot of documentation online regarding CMDB."
"It's not too difficult to configure with regard to the UI. My experience working with ServiceNow CMDB has been a very comfortable one."
"The way the CSDM model we have implemented works is great, as they provide good structure and offer excellent services right out of the box without the need to configure it."
"I like ServiceNow CMDB's discovery tools."
 

Cons

"You are lucky to get over the first level, then you are happy with the support."
"The implementation could be simplified. It is very complex and should be for a mature organization."
"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 page loading is very slow."
"Making it simpler to set up and understand would be a big improvement."
"Some of the UI could always be improved, but that is personal taste."
"Mobile/iPad Apps version of the UCMDB Browser would be a step ahead, which should have features, like viewing CI information, ownership, etc."
"I think the product is so large and complex that the learning curve is long if you want to understand all aspects of what it can do."
"The E2E solution has a huge dependency on scanning tools and ServiceNow lacks integration with scanning tools."
"The reporting function could be more advanced and has room for improvement."
"We would like the solution to be made more easily scalable in future updates."
"In ServiceNow, we are not there yet. It's less mature."
"They can improve the mobile application and the TGO tool, which is a built-in tool for development and implementation. As a developer, it is very frustrating to configure or customize the mobile app. In my opinion, this part of the application needs full rework and re-engineering."
"Definitely, the price needs to be lower because there are clients that I work with who cannot afford ServiceNow. I have to end up proposing alternate solutions to fit their budget."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"When running large queries within the system, it does have a tendency to bog down the system."
 

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."
"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."
"The product price falls on the higher side of the spectrum."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
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 Enterprise23
 

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: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.