ServiceNow vs xMatters comparison

The compared ServiceNow and Everbridge solutions aren't in the same category. ServiceNow is ranked #1 in ISM , with an average rating of 8.8, and holds a 15.8% mindshare in the category. Everbridge is ranked #10 in IMS , and holds a 6.0% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Everbridge users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow

Read 225 ServiceNow reviews

24,579 Views
8,848 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

xMatters

Read 31 xMatters reviews

1,528 Views
1,329 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

ServiceNow

xMatters

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ServiceNow and xMatters based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in IT Service Management (ITSM).

To learn more, read our detailed IT Service Management (ITSM) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

IT Service Management (ITSM)

March 2026

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Helped 884,873 peers since 2012

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

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

225

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (1st), IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)

xMatters

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Alerting and Incident Management (10th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. ServiceNow is designed for IT Service Management (ITSM) and holds a mindshare of 15.8%, down 24.5% compared to last year.
xMatters, on the other hand, focuses on IT Alerting and Incident Management, holds 6.0% mindshare, up 6.0% since last year.

IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ServiceNow	15.8%
JIRA Service Management	7.3%
BMC Helix ITSM	5.7%
Other	71.2%

IT Service Management (ITSM)

IT Alerting and Incident Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
xMatters	6.0%
PagerDuty Operations Cloud	13.1%
Opsgenie	9.1%
Other	71.8%

IT Alerting and Incident Management

Featured Reviews

MichaelTang1

Manager of Security Engineering & Architecture at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Seamless data integration and advanced automation improve service delivery efficiency

I think that nothing needs to be improved with the product; you just need the user to commit and spend appropriate time to overcome that learning curve. Once that is done, the product itself is pretty wonderful. I've seen a very nicely built interface with ServiceNow, and I've also seen the ugliest version that feels outdated. ServiceNow does allow that team to exist. They should modernize their fonts and their layout, the UI friendliness. They did introduce AI, chatbots, and AI on the back end, so that's wonderful and extremely useful if you train it. If you don't train it, it's pretty useless. Assessing the impact of ServiceNow's automation on service delivery times is complicated. The engineers who operate on ServiceNow find it isn't straightforward because the data set is accessible by everybody. The problem is that understanding how to manage that data set requires an enormous amount of engineering skill set to run the product. I would not hand the key to the customer; I would highly recommend that ServiceNow take control of that. Instead of offering support for the software, they should offer administrative support for the software. They should provide professional service or some kind of support system that allows us to use their product at a faster pace. I'm sure they offer something, but it's often outrageously expensive, or they rely on another company to resell their product and offer professional service. It makes no sense in my opinion, and they should offer the team at the front to help customize the product to fit each company's needs, as every company has different demands and forms of submitting a request that need adjustment over time.

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reviewer1855452

Infrastructure Analyst at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Helps in ensuring that everyone gets notified when needed, and provides the flexibility to integrate it and build what we want on top of it

They recently released an incident module that allows users, or at least teams, to track major incidents and other things, and you can send out communication via that one webpage. You can engage on-call teams and communicate to stakeholders as well, but one thing that is missing there is a group chat. If there is a group chat on the same webpage that all of the support teams could use, it would be a one-stop shop that all of the major incident managers would use as their product to manage a major incident. Without that, at the moment, they are mainly referring to teams and then adding data into xMatters as and when they can. Some of the workflow development work that we do for the in-house piece can be quite complicated if you don't have experience using the tool. You have to have to go through the documentation, but I suppose that's an expectation. When users first log on and they're configuring the rotas, it does take them a bit of time to get their heads around how to configure the shifts. Some of them do need guidance. We have got a support document, and xMatters also has a support page where they can go and read through the details. Our roles and access for each user are locked down, as opposed to just letting them access the xMatters portal because it can add more confusion because the support portal explains that they can do X, Y, and Z. So, we're removing that ability, but once the users get their head around how to configure the rotas, the overall intuitiveness of the UI is pretty good. It is simple and clean, and they don't have to do that many steps. There are probably one or two group supervisors that configure the rotas, and the rest of them log on. We've already pre-populated the contact details from our directory, so usually, they'll just go and add a personal device, if they do want to get called on a personal device, or they want to set up the app, which is pretty easy using the QR codes. The product looks nice and clean. The only thing is that it takes a little bit of work to get your head around the rotas, but once you do, it's pretty darn simple.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ServiceNow provides us with a platform that we can develop the tools that are necessary for just about any function on campus."

"Straightforward tool."

"Primarily, we use it for incident management and change across the landscape. It is the virtual repository for our incident management processes. It gives us visibility about what's happening from the change management perspective across our CABs, including our enterprise CABs."

"The thing that I like most about it is the easy integration with the CMDB. I'm able to look at the CMDB for applications and develop my assessments and attestations based on the application and point them at that application owner. So, I can really automate the whole thing."

"ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI."

"As I'm a developer, what I would say is that it's very flexible."

"To me, just the initial interface is very intuitive and user-friendly and I think it's just going to be yards ahead of what we've been doing previously."

"You can have it installed and up and running within hours if you know what you're doing. Time to market would be one of the main things to consider."

More ServiceNow pros

"Simple features create flow sets and build APIs for integrations."

"The two-way integration between ServiceNow and xMatters allows us to assign tickets to support personnel faster and respond to incidents faster."

"The most valuable feature is getting alerts out to my user base. xMatters is the only solution that I know that has robust scheduling, calendaring for groups, and that provides very good delineation of who gets alerted and on which devices they receive their alerts."

"The cloud solution reduces alarming to the core, which means no need to provision your server, which is great."

"The UI: It is easily navigable."

"The automated callouts, without a doubt, are most valuable. They have been a huge gain for our company. Previous to xMatters, there was no real management of the on-call resources or rotas. So, having that centralized and automated has been a huge gain."

"Being able to split the week however we want is definitely most valuable. We can create shifts and also see other teams' schedules. It is a very easy search to do these things."

"The on-call schedule that they have for groups is amazing in terms of how it works and how it triggers. You don't need to do anything. You just upload the users, and you have the calendar of the schedules. It is amazing how it works and how easy it is to work with this feature."

More xMatters pros

Cons

"The pricing of the solution could be better. It's a bit high."

"We do a lot of relatively advanced stuff for the size that we are, but ServiceNow itself is so big and to some extent, there is a significant amount of complexity that you have, a big learning curve I would say, in order to really get on board."

"One thing I don't care for is the reporting and the way it functions."

"It's missing monitoring capabilities."

"Time to respond from support could definitely be better, as the global support timing sometimes causes delays in interactions."

"It's too complicated and there are too many options."

"ServiceNow's customization is not too agile in those cases; it takes a little bit of time."

"The solution should offer better security when it comes to storing data."

More ServiceNow cons

"On-call management scheduling is difficult."

"The REST API is still missing some important functionality, which we require."

"I've asked for the ability to have tags on groups, and for dynamic lists, meaning the ability to pull data from another location and use it in xMatters dynamically. Right now, for example, if I have a form and want to populate a list, it's a manual process. I have to copy and paste the list items."

"The data validation and verification need to be enhanced so that when data is changed, it reviews it in an automated manner and catches all of the anomalies."

"I would like xMatters to provide users with the capability of administering it on their own. I do a lot of hand-holding with them."

"We have had outages with the product. We have experienced functionality (defects), such as conference bridges can only be opened for four hours at a time and people get kicked out."

"Beyond the typical grouping, xMatters has what is referred to as dynamic teams. Dynamic teams are criteria for setting up and targeting a group of people that meet specific criteria. The bad thing about this setup is that you cannot alter those criteria through the typical xMatters import/export process. The attributes that create the criteria for dynamic teams can only be altered via the Web UI. So, if you want to create a new dynamic team in a mature xMatters environment (one that is already populated with hundreds of users), and you want to add, say, 100 users to that dynamic team, you have to do it manually."

"What I would like it to do is tell me anytime there is a P1 incident, except when the ticket is assigned to this team or when this word is in the summary, but there is no exclusion option. I have been complaining about this for a couple years. At one point, we created a ticket for this with the developers to review. I assume that once enough people complain about it, they will bump it up in priority to work on. However, if not enough people think it is an issue, then they prioritize their work and work on other features and functionality. However, this is something that has been challenging for us because we have needed to find ways to work around it or just deal with it. So, I would love to see an exclusion option."

More xMatters cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While the option exists to pay for a monthly license, we are dealing with large enterprises and these typically involve multi-year licenses of ten or five years, at a minimum."

"The licensing expenses are excessively high."

"The license model is based on a number of fulfillers (active users who play some role within the ServiceNow functionality). Therefore, you can serve as many end-users as you want, without additional costs."

"We are happy with the pricing."

"It is an expensive platform."

"We know that ServiceNow is not cheap, it's more expensive than other solutions. But we are trying to increase our ability to handle tickets so that the cost per ticket is less."

"For the modules we use, we found it competitive. I can't think of any costs in addition to the licensing fees."

"I am from Brazil. For Latin American markets, ServiceNow is very expensive as compared to other vendors, such as VMware."

More ServiceNow pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is tiered so we took that into account. If we were to license 10 or 20 people, that would be a certain price. And if we were to license 50 or 100, there would be a little bit of discounting. But the per-user license was right in line with what we were expecting."

"I know roughly what we pay per year. For what we use it for and what its purpose is, it is very valuable."

"The features they provide, versus the cost, are pretty good."

"This is a subscription-based, SaaS solution."

"It is worth the cost. You need to know the number of users that are going to use it, which is usually pretty easy to calculate. It's on a per-user license."

"If you are willing to pay for the licensing of it, it is able to scale out."

"I would definitely say it's worth the value. I wouldn't say it's expensive, but most people who pick xMatters are not going to select xMatters based on price. There are other lower-priced competitors that are out there. But I would say for what we're getting, it's worth the money."

"We're currently per license. We're paying around $44,000 per year for 80 full users and 300 standard users. For a new implementation, we also need to pay for an expert."

More xMatters pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Performing Arts

13%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	55
Midsize Enterprise	35
Large Enterprise	168

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	24

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about ServiceNow?

The solution has a user-friendly interface.

See all answers

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Comparisons

BMC Helix ITSM vs ServiceNow

Compared 6% of the time

IBM Maximo vs ServiceNow

Compared 5% of the time

Zendesk vs ServiceNow

Compared 4% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs ServiceNow

Compared 4% of the time

Freshservice vs ServiceNow

Compared 3% of the time

More ServiceNow Competitors

PagerDuty Operations Cloud vs xMatters

Compared 35% of the time

Opsgenie vs xMatters

Compared 21% of the time

Everbridge IT Alerting vs xMatters

Compared 17% of the time

FireHydrant vs xMatters

Compared 10% of the time

OnSolve Platform for Critical Event Management vs xMatters

Compared 3% of the time

More xMatters Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow

February 2026

Download ServiceNow product report

Buyer's Guide

xMatters

February 2026

Download xMatters product report

Also Known As

No data available

xMatters IT Management

Overview

ServiceNow is a cloud-based task-management platform that specializes in IT operations management (ITOM), IT services management (ITSM), and IT business management (ITBM). ServiceNow allows users to manage their teams, projects, and customer interactions using a variety of different plugins and apps with which it easily integrates.

ServiceNow offers prebuilt applications to support any process, as well as a framework and tools that allow you to build your own.

ServiceNow’s service management solutions include change, request, incident, problem, and cost management, as well as HR, IT, field service, and facilities management solutions. They also cover business management solutions such as vendor performance management, financial management, performance analytics and project portfolio suite, as well as governance, risk, and compliance.

“The Smarter Way to Workflow”

ServiceNow’s activities, processes, and tasks are overseen as part of a comprehensive managed workflow that supports such features as real-time collaboration, communication, and resource sharing. ServiceNow’s suite of products allow for operation using serverless computing, and include the categories of Business Apps, Customer Service, HR, IT, and Security.

ServiceNow can be used to support most workflows because of the wide range of tools it offers. These include on-suite ticketing tools, predictive modeling to manage workflows, and benchmarking for the tracking of progress. ServiceNow can assist with artificial intelligence and machine learning processes and can be used to organize the cases of a help/service desk as well as for instance management and problem management. It also smoothly integrates with many legacy systems.

ServiceNow offers service management software for industries including:

Cloud services
Education
Financial services
Government
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Telecommunications

Reviews from Real Users

PeerSpot users prefer ServiceNow to its competitors because of its scalability, stability, and ease of use. It helps everyone in the company to be on the same page by creating a single source of record across all departments. One user stated that “I’ve definitely used over 20 project management solutions, but they can't be compared with ServiceNow.” Another said that “ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI.”

ServiceNow

xMatters, an Everbridge company, is a service reliability platform that helps DevOps, SREs, and operations teams rapidly deliver products at scale by automating workflows and ensuring infrastructure and applications are always working. The xMatters code-free workflow builder, adaptive approach to incident management, and real-time performance analytics all support a single goal: deliver customer happiness.

To learn more, request a demo.

Reliable services, rapid innovation: Automate operations workflows, ensure applications are always working, and deliver remarkable products at scale with the xMatters service reliability platform.

Automate on the xMatters service reliability platform: Move faster with confidence. Our no-code and low-code integrations let you build flexible workflows to address issues proactively—even during deployments.

Frictionless on-call: Manage on-call seamlessly. Automatically escalate to the right people, schedule with ease, and act on detailed alerts from anywhere.

Adaptive Incident Management: Stay resilient in any scenario with our adaptive approach to incident management. Automate resolution, protect customers from disruptions, and learn from each event.

Signal Intelligence: Put situations in context and cut through the noise of multiple monitoring tools with filtering and suppression, alert correlation, enriched notifications, and routing based on role or function.

Actionable Analytics: Get quick insights into key metrics to understand inefficiencies, boosting collaboration and productivity across engineering and operations teams.

Everbridge

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

Over 2.7 million users trust xMatters daily at successful startups and global giants including athenahealth, BMC Software, Box, Credit Suisse, Danske Bank, Experian, NVIDIA, ViaSat and Vodafone. xMatters is headquartered in San Ramon, California and has offices worldwide. Visit our website to see how business like yours found solutions with xMatters.

Buyer's Guide

IT Service Management (ITSM)

March 2026

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