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ServiceNow Discovery vs Zenoss Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

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
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (9th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)
Zenoss Cloud
Ranking in Server Monitoring
25th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Application Infrastructure (18th), Event Monitoring (13th), Network Monitoring Software (69th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (55th), Container Monitoring (8th), Cloud Monitoring Software (42nd), AIOps (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 2.6%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zenoss Cloud is 2.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Server Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow Discovery2.6%
Zenoss Cloud2.7%
Other94.7%
Server Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Abhinay Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Now Developer at Bangmetric services pvt ltd
Cloud discovery has improved asset visibility and reporting but still needs smarter automation
The impact of ServiceNow Discovery on my organization's strategic planning depends on various factors. Some customers have their own discovery tools which they do not want to switch from, even if we explain why ServiceNow might be better, because they have been using them for a long time. Some customers are dynamic, so we need to have some kind of proposition that comes with ServiceNow. Sometimes, we need to talk with ServiceNow people themselves to give them a bundle offer in which we can have Discovery and ITSM at a much more affordable price than the competitors, so that is our main goal. Currently, I would say there might be a possibility if we can use some AI discovery features that could be helpful for our organization. If we can get discovery jobs running based on AI schedules, that would be beneficial. I believe in the coming future that I want to see myself working more with ServiceNow in this capacity.
ClaudiaChen - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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."
"It does a good job of collecting the data that's necessary for data centers, and IT's operations."
"Discovery enables us to get an accurate inventory that's updated daily. It eliminates human error and the need for people to update configuration changes manually. We have not implemented them yet but plan to set up alerts on CIs that are being audited to see if there are any changes."
"ServiceNow Discovery is useful for discovering the servers, like the servers of Windows and Linux, from the client network."
"One of the most valuable features of ServiceNow Discovery is the automated discovery that helps identify dependencies and generates reports."
"The advantage of ServiceNow is that it's a single system of record which allows you to build other modules on top of it."
"We mostly use the solution's ITSM and ITOM capabilities in most workflows."
"I like ServiceNow Discovery's overall structure and the way data comes in without creating a different dashboard or interface."
"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past."
"The product offers good documentation that helps with initial training."
"Overall, it's a great solution, and I consider it to be one of the best."
"It is the most flexible solution of this type, but it takes time to adapt."
"They have also accommodated many state-of-the-art technologies like Docker and ZooKeeper."
"Zenoss is more complex than LogicMonitor, but scalable and hugely customizable."
"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

"Between SolarWinds and ServiceNow, there is some communication gap."
"It's an expensive platform."
"It creates quite a bit of duplication, so that needs to be fixed."
"The product should improve its customer interface, web interface, and front end. I would like to see the integration of keyboard chat with the solution."
"ServiceNow ITOM is particularly not very strong in terms of monitoring capabilities. They do not have any monitoring tool."
"Improvements are required with the scripts used to collect the information from servers."
"Whenever you try to discover something with the solution, you get errors that are not descriptive enough."
"What needs improvement in ServiceNow Discovery is the reporting UI because I didn't find it as friendly compared to other tools. Other tools have better reporting UI than what's currently in ServiceNow Discovery. What I'd like to see in the next release of ServiceNow Discovery is more user-friendly out-of-the-box reporting that would be helpful for non-technical users. Some users such as managers would want to just do a few clicks to access the reports and shouldn't be required to do search queries, but right now, reporting in the tool isn't very user-friendly."
"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"
"There was a problem with Zenoss and storage monitoring."
"It would be ideal if the product offered sound alerts."
"This solution is complex for beginners so it takes some time to learn."
"Now it is stable, but they should design threshold parameters in percentage instead of raw values."
"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."
"Technical support is 3/10, poor: Incomplete and poor documentation Undocumented processes Inconsistent solutions to problems depending on source"
"The inclusion of a feature to show a graphical view of the network would be a helpful improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ROI (Return on Investment) is good. ServiceNow don't disclose the price publicly. They'll assess your organization's needs and then come up with a price."
"The price could be better. It's a bit on the pricey side."
"It costs a lot. It is probably close to over a hundred thousand. It's an expensive platform, but you can't compare ServiceNow's Discovery functionality to other discovery tools. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison of ServiceNow to a configuration management tool to an asset management tool because it does those things, but it's not those things."
"The product pricing is fair and reasonable for the value it provides."
"The solution is not inexpensive so pricing is rated a three out of ten."
"It is not recommended for smaller companies because of the price."
"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."
"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."
"It depends on the customer, what he wants."
"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 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."
"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."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Transportation Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?
Regarding pricing, I have not dealt much with it. I am more focused on the feature side of things, so I cannot comment on the latest pricing because it is dynamic as well. Sometimes it is cheaper f...
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?
The impact of ServiceNow Discovery on my organization's strategic planning depends on various factors. Some customers have their own discovery tools which they do not want to switch from, even if w...
What is your primary use case for ServiceNow Discovery?
I have utilized ServiceNow Discovery for cloud management, specifically for basic AWS discovery. If you're having a VPS, it is also considered in discovery, and that falls under the cloud managemen...
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Cloud Monitoring, Zenoss Service Dynamics
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY
2degrees, Rackspace, State of North Dakota, El Paso Independent School District, NWN Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow Discovery vs. Zenoss Cloud and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.