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ServiceNow vs SysAid comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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
Ranking in Help Desk Software
1st
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
219
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
SysAid
Ranking in Help Desk Software
20th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 SysAid is 0.7%, up from 0.7% 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.
Todd Blake - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution that streamlines ticket creation for the staff members of a business and enables efficient issue resolution by the IT team
SysAid is similar to Nintex AssureSign. Some of the back-end configurations of the solution are very difficult. So, we always need SysAid's help. Also, there are almost too many features that we are not taking advantage of in our company since we don't even know about them. A little bit of a streamlining or simplification of the main features would be a good improvement. I would like to see SysAid present its solution more easily. There is a lot in the solution, and it is more than what we need in our company.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I find almost all the features valuable. It can do nearly everything except make your coffee, as my colleagues always say. It's got pros and cons, like every software, but the good thing about it is that it has a very structured approach."
"SPM and ITSM features are the most helpful."
"I prefer ServiceNow to the competition because of its ease of use, installation and configuration."
"ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI."
"I don't have to look through a whole bunch of other incidents that aren't relevant to me. It's very useful in that sense."
"It can scale well if you are managing IT assets."
"Within our organization, we're not finding really any major issues with scalability and things of that nature."
"It's a very low-code platform, and it's simple. The user experience is also really good."
"It tracks everything that the technicians are doing. We can account for time and manage resources."
"All our service management is integrated into one system. Our response time is much faster because we have a visual into what is going on."
"The simplicity of the solution is excellent."
"I would say the overall flexibility of the product is its most valuable feature."
"The solution can scale."
"The solution provides us with multi-layered service management along with all our support pieces integrated in one system. Our entire system is run on SysAid, from Tier 1 to Tier 3. All the other IT department functionality is captured in SysAid, like development, warehousing, and application. So, it has vertical and horizontal coverage."
"The service desk automation and orchestration are very good. We are implementing it at the moment. We implemented it for two of our applications already for our CRM. Whenever there's a change in the CRM, it will automate them into SysAid as well. We have two workflows from our CRM into SysAid, which is very helpful. Overall, we're very happy with the workflow."
"The SysAid team provided excellent service to implement the solution for us. From the very first day, we received a comp manager, and a project manager, to implement the product. They continued to inquire about our business needs and then finalized the best path for us."
 

Cons

"I find ServiceNow to be a little bit clunky. If I need to report an issue they have a number of different options. I can report an issue, I can ask a question, I can make a request and it has varying levels of importance or levels of attention required. I find that what's required to submit is not always clear."
"I find the way you need to attach things like screenshots and stuff is a bit gimmicky. I'm a casual user. I'll use it once every two months and only when I have an incident that I need to report. You don't get a lot of experience with it when you're just using it once in a while like that. Therefore, it needs to be more intuitive so that you don't have to re-learn how to do simple tasks as the way to do certain things just isn't obvious."
"It's a great platform, but there's still room for improvement. As the solutions stands now, you do need a lot of previous experience to use it. It would be great if they could develop some use case templates. This would be beneficial for a small and medium-sized businesses."
"There is a need to enhance ticket details visibility on the portal, such as displaying SLA information, which currently requires development effort."
"Before implementing this solution, you should have the ITSM model in place for chain management requests. That is a prerequisite because you cannot perform tasks without it."
"The biggest complaint I have is that the ServiceNow search engine is not very robust."
"The contract module is quite rudimentary and doesn't support contract line items."
"There is inherent complexity with this tool because of the number of things that it can do."
"So far, we're very happy with the new integration. The only thing that I would like to see is for them to improve asset management so that it's more usable. We looked at it once and we didn't find it quite usable for us. That's why we didn't use it. We haven't looked into the new one yet but the asset management is something that can be improved even more and patch management is not as good as it could be."
"We would like them to approve the security functionalities, e.g., management security features."
"There is a learning curve for the users."
"Some of the back-end configurations of the solution are very difficult. So, we always need SysAid's help."
"The automation needs improvement. The workflow has some improvements to do. There's some stuff that they are working on like having cascaded fields. For example, we're categorizing tickets by location, by site and by building and then by data room within a data center. At the moment they're all separate fields."
"One of the features that I'm hoping comes at some point is that currently you can only have one Knowledge Base instance within it. For me, it would be beneficial to have multiple instances for different purposes. I'd like to have a completely separate one for customers and the only way I can achieve that right now, where I can tag articles to only be viewed by customers, would be if I use its portal function."
"Monitoring needs improvement. At the moment we are looking for some advanced monitoring tools, which are using AI and machine learning as well. This product currently does not offer that."
"SysAid has fewer AI features compared to other tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
"It is fairly expensive."
"The solution is expensive."
"The price is okay for us. It's reasonable."
"I'm not aware of any additional costs. I'm pretty sure that the current client is paying just the licensing fee per user. I do know that they've got some support agreement with ServiceNow, but I don't think that is broken out or specific to Project Management. It is just inclusive."
"The setup cost is high compared to others, especially when the scope is not fixed."
"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."
"In Tunisia, the companies find the licensing costs to be expensive."
"We saw our investment back at the end of year one."
"Once you're interested, talk with SysAid. You can have them come in and look at your company and advise you on the best solution. They will tell you what comes with each separate package and also advise you what application to activate. If you want something that they don't have, they have a department that can design something based on your unique requests."
"SysAid is a good solution, especially from a pricing perspective."
"Though I am not really sure about SysAid's prices, I know that it is competitive compared to some of the other products that our company looked at, like ConnectWise and ServiceNow."
"The pricing of SysAid is less than its competitors."
"Overall, the price is good. It's all about what you get for the base amount. From my perspective, you want to look at what you're getting out-of-the-box. SysAid does a good job of putting key stuff in the box for you."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

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 SysAid?
SysAid is more user-friendly, and its configuration is easier than other tools.
What needs improvement with SysAid?
With SysAid, most of the customers are requesting a native mobile application. SysAid has fewer AI features compared to other tools.
What advice do you have for others considering SysAid?
Our customers use the enterprise edition and the standard edition of SysAid. We provide local support, but there are some things we have to escalate to SysAid. When we need support, we use their su...
 

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    
Disney, Sears Holdings Corporation, LAN Airlines, Schneider Electric, On Semiconductors, Toyota, Sky, KPMG, Georgetown University Law Center, Motorola, North York General Hospital, Volksbank, Xerox, Bacardi, Del Monte Fresh Produce, Manpower, Nucor, Ecobank
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow vs. SysAid and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.