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ServiceNow vs SolarWinds Service Desk 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

ServiceNow
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
216
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (1st), IT Asset Management (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
SolarWinds Service Desk
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
29th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of ServiceNow is 24.2%, down from 27.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Service Desk is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Somnath Kand - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom integration and reporting lead to efficient ticket management
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow. Although there are child incidents or tickets, tracking primary issues or bugs within enhancements is not present. The reporting features in the new portal could be more user-friendly. While it provides options to minimize chart and image sizes, actual implementation doesn't always reflect these changes.
BENDER BENEDICT - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust solution to automate and manage incidents and requests
The integration with other applications can use improvement because, for example, it was nearly impossible to integrate SolarWinds Service Desk with monday.com because we had to get an add-on from Zapier. The add-on allowed us to integrate with Jira Cloud Service, but we couldn't integrate completely and can only integrate with the project. I would also suggest that the incident and request management be separated on SolarWinds Service Desk. The solution's incident and request management feature are one of the core reasons why we had to migrate to Jira Service Management. It was difficult to filter incidents and requests. They are all compiled together in a single dashboard, which is not convenient for most of the users, especially the IT support person.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Great that it's knowledge-based and you can use the flows in ServiceNow."
"It facilitates the monitoring of major incidents and provides insights into the effort expended to resolve each incident."
"It's easy to integrate. For instance, yesterday we closed the integration with SAP for the IP business management module to manage the forecast of projects. We created an interface between ServiceNow and SAP to control projects for accounting and on the forecast of the project. It was really easy. We don't have any problems with ServiceNow at the moment. As a company, they are improving constantly."
"The solution is easy to use, simple to make queries, flexible to configure, integrates well, and supports all of our companies needs."
"There are features included in the new release for intelligent software, like the chatbot. For HR services, the HR agent which is in that chatbot has been fantastic."
"Within our organization, we're not finding really any major issues with scalability and things of that nature."
"ServiceNow was the first true enterprise to service management platform."
"This solution is a single-storage for our user community to submit help desk tickets."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"There are sometimes challenges with the portal being a bit confusing for new users."
"Where it could be improved is Discovery. This may sound odd since I just praised the value of ServiceNow Discovery, but improvements to its automatic detection, the breadth of devices, and the depth of devices covered, as well as keeping up with new technologies, are all essential."
"When it comes to reference fields, there are some limitations where you aren't able to use them, like in relationship queries. In Remedy, when you click a menu, you get options directly, whereas here, if you use a reference field, it points you to a different form. So the UI experience totally changes for the end user."
"I do not like the user interface."
"The installation and deployment of ServiceNow can be a bit challenging. One major issue I've encountered is that ServiceNow doesn't provide the same mobile responsiveness or features that we used to enjoy with other tools. For example, with Splunk, our response times were about five minutes, and we could manage alerts and incidents directly from our mobile devices."
"Some enhancements to the self-service platform would be helpful. That part is still a little barebone... Also, the mobile app is not bad, but it's limited."
"I am interested to see the firm's strategic plans for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), and how the particular areas it will expand on from its existing investments (that feature, for example, in its ITSM Pro and CSM Pro modules)."
"I have enjoyed all the features. There is not any feature that I have missed or didn't have."
"The integration with other applications can use improvement because, for example, it was nearly impossible to integrate SolarWinds Service Desk with monday.com because we had to get an add-on from Zapier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Certainly, from a product-platform perspective, the price is not too bad."
"The licensing cost is based on your partnership with ServiceNow and what you have selected for implementation. There is an annual license cost which is calculated based on your number of devices."
"ServiceNow is an expensive solution."
"The licensing expenses are excessively high."
"It's sold as a less expensive solution, but it has to be highly modified. That's where you get into the cost."
"The price could be a little lower for the solution. Many of my customers have issues with the licensing process, they have to make it easier and straightforward."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
59%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
4%
Marketing Services Firm
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

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    
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Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.