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ServiceNow vs Spiceworks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Organizations experience varied ROI from ServiceNow, often seeing efficiency gains and cost savings, but face adoption challenges.
Sentiment score
7.8
Spiceworks provides high ROI as a free tool, benefiting efficiency, issue resolution, and stability despite setup time investment.
They have removed the costs associated with on-prem infrastructure, including data center costs, power costs, and physical server costs.
The return on investment is good when implementing for ourselves and for other clients.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
ServiceNow excels in customer service responsiveness, but technical support quality varies, particularly with complex issues, prompting community reliance.
Sentiment score
7.4
Spiceworks offers excellent, free email-based support, with strong community assistance and some criticisms for lacking direct phone support.
The support is exemplary and deserves a perfect rating.
Obtaining support for maintenance is the current challenge because they don't have a presence in the local market.
I rate the technical support of ServiceNow as a nine on a scale of one to ten.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
ServiceNow excels in scalable cloud infrastructure, supporting smooth expansions across organizations by following best practices and upgrading hardware.
Sentiment score
7.4
Spiceworks is scalable for small to large setups, though larger organizations may face challenges; newer versions improve scalability.
There are no limitations or performance issues with ServiceNow; it is cloud-based, so it is highly scalable and performs well.
It is capable of vertical scaling with no issues.
I rate the scalability of ServiceNow as an eight on a scale of one to ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
ServiceNow is highly stable with excellent uptime, strong support, and impressive reliability, though scalability issues occur with heavy customizations.
Sentiment score
6.6
Spiceworks is stable but may slow down or crash with large setups; proper configuration enhances performance and stability.
It is cloud-based, so it is highly scalable and performs well.
I rate the stability of ServiceNow as a nine on a scale of one to ten.
ServiceNow is already a stable tool.
 

Room For Improvement

ServiceNow needs pricing, usability, and support enhancements, including better documentation, UI, integration, and global support for improvement.
Spiceworks users desire enhanced monitoring, scalability, reporting, integration, and user-friendly features with faster performance and lower resource consumption.
From a functionality perspective, the features in ServiceNow are acceptable as, at the moment, the ITSM modules rank highly, being 13 plus Pink Elephant certified, which is a good aspect to have.
Their customer support could make it a great solution, not just product support but also their relationship with partners and training initiatives in different regions.
The initial setup of ServiceNow was easy for me, and I can easily access the knowledge base, pass tickets to another team through internal notes, and each individual will get a personal email when a ticket is placed into their queue.
 

Setup Cost

ServiceNow's pricing is higher due to licensing complexity, requiring negotiation for better deals despite unlimited end-users being supported.
Spiceworks provides a customizable, free help desk solution with optional costs for premium features, suitable for small to medium businesses.
ServiceNow's pricing can be justified if more functionality is required.
ServiceNow is expensive for all regions.
 

Valuable Features

ServiceNow enhances IT operations with flexible integration, customization, and modules, offering efficiency, automation, and seamless cloud-based upgrades.
Spiceworks offers SMBs a free help desk, inventory management, user-friendly interface, and strong community support for IT needs.
Automation capabilities are impressive, bolstered by a vast repository of out-of-the-box connectors and plugins that facilitate integration with various applications worldwide.
ServiceNow provides a wide range of functionality, covering all the necessary modules, unlike Jira which is primarily for IT.
The features of ServiceNow that I find most valuable include its ability to easily access ticket details if you know the ticket number, monitor the timeline of when the ticket was created, and see the current status.
Additionally, it is free software.
 

Categories and Ranking

ServiceNow
Ranking in Help Desk Software
1st
Ranking in IT Asset Management
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
Spiceworks
Ranking in Help Desk Software
17th
Ranking in IT Asset Management
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
IT Infrastructure Monitoring (44th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of ServiceNow is 23.4%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spiceworks is 1.9%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

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.
Jeetendar Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Customizable, easy to use, easy to manage, and provides multiple features
I have used many software, but Spiceworks is the best. The tool provides multiple features. It is a valuable product for inventory. It is also useful as a ticketing system. The solution is easy to use and easy to manage. Many people can use it very easily. The features are not complicated. It is very easy to run, install, and understand. That is why my organization decided to use it. The solution’s asset management capabilities have benefitted us in many ways. We are able to manage all the inventory. We have a complete database. We have a record of everything. It is very valuable. I rate the usability of the user interface and dashboard a nine out of ten. The tool is easy to learn compared to other software.
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Comparison Review

it_user174738 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 31, 2015
Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor
I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
University
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
What do you like most about Spiceworks?
The solution is easy to use and easy to manage.
What needs improvement with Spiceworks?
I am unable to provide suggestions for improvement at this moment, however, I can provide feedback later. Currently, there do not seem to be any issues.
 

Comparisons

 

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    
Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Symantec, Webroot, EMC, Pertino
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow vs. Spiceworks and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.