ServiceNow Discovery vs Zenoss Cloud comparison

ServiceNow and Zenoss are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. ServiceNow is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0, while Zenoss is ranked #24. ServiceNow holds a 3.2% mindshare in SM, compared to Zenoss’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zenoss users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow Discovery

Read 44 ServiceNow Discovery reviews

3,767 Views
1,997 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Zenoss Cloud

Read 8 Zenoss Cloud reviews

2,371 Views
569 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Discovery

Zenoss Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

Zenoss Cloud and ServiceNow Discovery are two leading IT operations management solutions. Zenoss Cloud holds the upper hand in ease of deployment and customer support, while ServiceNow Discovery excels in features and overall user satisfaction.

Features: Users value Zenoss Cloud's real-time alerting, extensive monitoring capabilities, and ease of deployment. ServiceNow Discovery is praised for its comprehensive asset discovery, integration with IT Service Management, and robust feature set, making it preferable for users needing in-depth asset management.

Room for Improvement: Zenoss Cloud could improve its scalability, integrations, and feature breadth. ServiceNow Discovery needs enhancements in dashboard customization, speed, and system complexity. Both products exhibit areas for growth, but Zenoss Cloud’s improvements are focused on expanding integration capabilities, whereas ServiceNow Discovery should enhance user experience facets.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zenoss Cloud users report quick deployment times and responsive customer service. ServiceNow Discovery’s deployment is considered more complex and time-consuming, though its customer service is well-rated but not as prompt as Zenoss Cloud’s.

Pricing and ROI: Zenoss Cloud is highlighted for its reasonable setup costs and good ROI. ServiceNow Discovery, though more expensive, offers extensive features and higher ROI as perceived by users. Zenoss Cloud is framed as more cost-effective but ServiceNow Discovery provides higher long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow Discovery vs. Zenoss Cloud Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery vs. Zenoss Cloud

January 2026

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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

ServiceNow Discovery

Ranking in Server Monitoring

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Asset Management (6th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)

Zenoss Cloud

Ranking in Server Monitoring

24th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (25th), Event Monitoring (13th), Network Monitoring Software (76th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (52nd), Container Monitoring (7th), Cloud Monitoring Software (44th), AIOps (24th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 3.2%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zenoss Cloud is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ServiceNow Discovery	3.2%
Zenoss Cloud	2.0%
Other	94.8%

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

reviewer2759271

Manager, Solution/Service Delivery at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Has supported enterprise needs well and addresses discovery across environments

Small companies will not be able to afford ServiceNow Discovery from the pricing perspective. Hence, they will not opt for ServiceNow Discovery as a solution, either as an ITSM solution or ITOM solution. It will not be affordable. I am specifically talking about the Middle East and Africa region. ServiceNow ITOM is particularly not very strong in terms of monitoring capabilities. They do not have any monitoring tool. They use event management from getting events from other tools. In that front, they had a roadmap for going for an open-source solution, but I have not seen that materialize. There is a lack of tools perspective for monitoring. Perhaps they do not have a plan because there are hundreds of tools available, and they prefer to focus on integration and event management.

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ClaudiaChen

Cloud Architect - Senior Technology Architect at Telstra

Generates close to real-time alerts so users can resolve issues, but needs more integration and public cloud monitoring features

As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The service management and operations management modules are valuable."

"The workflows are beneficial as they allow tasks to be assigned to respective teams without the need for coding."

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"ServiceNow Discovery works better than other products I've used."

"The most valuable feature of ServiceNow Discovery is its performance."

"I find that the Discovery and scripting features are the most useful."

"We mostly use the solution's ITSM and ITOM capabilities in most workflows."

More ServiceNow Discovery pros

"The product offers good documentation that helps with initial training."

"They have also accommodated many state-of-the-art technologies like Docker and ZooKeeper."

"It's easy to use."

"Its Docker Container concept is mind blowing. It is the first monitoring tool which comes with Docker features."

"The custom built integration is one of the most valuable features because you can see all the especially critical items."

"What I like most about Zenoss Service Dynamics is that it monitors the devices and gives close to real-time alerts. For example, in case the device is not available, Zenoss Service Dynamics generates an alert so my team can resolve the issue."

"The most valuable feature is the flexible discovery mechanism."

Cons

"In terms of improvement, I would like for it to be possible to use without coding. I would like a dropdown so that every customer can do it easily for himself and can understand it."

"When you switch versions, for example, when you go from Paris to Quebec they will introduce many new things and occasionally things break when they do that."

"It's an expensive platform."

"ServiceNow is very costly."

"On the Software Asset Management part of it, I expect additional reconciliation and Discovery features there."

"The initial setup could be made easier. We hired professionals to implement it, and they trained our employees for ongoing processes."

"We would like more flexibility with the licensing. Discovery is bundled with ServiceNow's ITOM license. It was more affordable when it was sold separately, but we bought a package license to get more functionality out of the CMDB. We'd prefer to buy only the pieces we need instead of taking things we don't want or solutions that aren't yet mature enough to use."

"Application discovery could be improved. And, right now, ServiceNow needs to be coupled with another solution in order to verify information."

More ServiceNow Discovery cons

"There was a problem with Zenoss and storage monitoring."

"As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor."

"The inclusion of a feature to show a graphical view of the network would be a helpful improvement."

"It would be ideal if the product offered sound alerts."

"Now it is stable, but they should design threshold parameters in percentage instead of raw values."

"The AI aspect needs to improve."

"There is room for improvement with the administrative part. They introduced Control Center to manage things in Zenoss 5. The services that Zenoss provides remained the same, but the administrative part, since they introduced Docker, etc., has become a little complex"

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a subscription for ServiceNow Discovery. It's expensive, but I think it's one of the best solutions on the market, so it's worth it."

"You need a subscription to ServiceNow Discovery, so you can use its features. You can also use specific plugins with the tool, and some of the plugins are free. I don't have information on how much my company pays for the subscription to ServiceNow Discovery."

"The product pricing is fair and reasonable for the value it provides."

"ServiceNow Discovery's licensing is not a very small investment, but it definitely pays off."

"This solution is a paid option within the ServiceNow framework."

"If the product is not deployed properly, it can be very expensive."

"ServiceNow Discovery has very broad pricing, so it becomes costly. It would be better if it had a pay-as-you-use licensing model because the total cost of ownership is quite high."

"This is expensive, but it meets our needs."

More ServiceNow Discovery pricing and cost advice

"The pricing depends on the environment, the number of services, and the size of the data center. It can go from $100,000 to a million dollars."

"There are additional costs you'll have to pay apart from the license fee for Zenoss Service Dynamics. I can't remember exactly how much my company is paying because I don't handle the finance part, but the cost is paid annually. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I'm rating the solution three out of five."

"It depends on the customer, what he wants."

"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past. The company is gaining a lot with respect to the cost factor. It provides agentless monitoring and in a very cheap way."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

10%

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	23

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Large Enterprise	5

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ServiceNow Discovery?

The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?

The pricing information for ServiceNow Discovery was requested but not provided.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?

A CMDB debugging tool to give indication about the errors that appear would be appreciated.

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

In my experience, I worked with many monitoring software, but the one that gave me the most functionalities of a large-scale company is Zenoss, due to its ability to monitor completely hybrid and a...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 16% of the time

Lansweeper vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 13% of the time

BMC Helix Discovery vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 6% of the time

Flexera One vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 6% of the time

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Nagios XI vs Zenoss Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Zabbix vs Zenoss Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

SCOM vs Zenoss Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Nagios Core vs Zenoss Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

PRTG Network Monitor vs Zenoss Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Zenoss Cloud

January 2026

Download Zenoss Cloud product report

Also Known As

No data available

Cloud Monitoring, Zenoss Service Dynamics

Overview

ServiceNow Discovery finds applications and devices on your network, and then updates the CMDB with the information it finds. Discovery is available as a separate subscription from the rest of the Now Platform.

ServiceNow

Zenoss Cloud revolutionizes IT infrastructure monitoring with a service-centric approach, prioritizing the overall health of services and applications. Harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AIOps), Zenoss Cloud offers end-to-end visibility across servers, networks, storage, and applications. Real-time monitoring, event correlation, and automated remediation ensure immediate insights and efficient issue resolution. The customizable dashboards empower users to tailor visualizations to their needs, while scalability accommodates diverse infrastructures. Zenoss Cloud guarantees improved application performance, reduced downtime, and enhanced IT efficiency, making it an ideal choice for businesses of all sizes, from small enterprises seeking simplicity to large corporations requiring advanced scalability. Experience unified monitoring and proactive management with Zenoss Cloud, a comprehensive solution that transforms IT infrastructure optimization in today's complex environments.

Zenoss

Sample Customers

York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY

2degrees, Rackspace, State of North Dakota, El Paso Independent School District, NWN Corporation

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery vs. Zenoss Cloud

January 2026

Free Report: ServiceNow Discovery vs. Zenoss Cloud

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