BMC Helix ITSM alternatives and competitors

We use this solution mostly for ITSM, but we also have customers who use it for customer service management and item discovery.

The features I found most valuable in this solution are usually also found on other platforms like the Visual Task Boards.

For change management, I find the CAB workbench very useful. I haven't seen any other solution that has a CAB workbench or advanced automated solutions for a change advisory board. That's one of the perks of ServiceNow. Other perks include the Visual Task Boards and the Virtual Agent. ServiceNow also has the Workflow Engine which works very well and is very intuitive. Some of the development tools give you a lot of freedom in terms of changing processes. That's what we like.

This solution needs to be improved for global use. Currently, it's very oriented to the processes and needs of the US customer base, like their compliance solution or GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance), and not so much for customers from other parts of the world. Some users may like the things that ServiceNow is improving, but those are very oriented to users based in the United States and Europe.

In Latin America which is the geographical region we work in, it's not very useful. Some of the customers are more interested in other solutions. Sometimes they put aside ServiceNow because it is focused on the needs of the customer base in Europe and the US. This is one of the disadvantages I see.

Another disadvantage is the level of maturity that the customer has to have to get value from a solution like ServiceNow. The customer needs to have a great level of maturity. A company that is starting its journey with ITSM wouldn't find ServiceNow very useful, because sometimes there's a considerable amount of code you need to know to be able to implement ServiceNow. This will depend on the complex needs that a customer may have, for the customer to find ServiceNow as a useful solution. Depending on the level of maturity they have, they would need that amount of customization. I don't see the need for coding as a problem. The problem I see is that the level of maturity that the customer needs to have is high.

There's quite a lot of features in ServiceNow. Currently, we haven't had any sort of need that ServiceNow and the features that they already have, don't resolve. There's no feature that I can think of right now that I'd like to be added in the next release.

There are some guidelines that ServiceNow has that automate the implementation, but they're available only for ITSM and ITOM. It would be good if those automated guidelines are also made available for other ServiceNow solutions like customer service management, configuration management, and asset management.

Another area for improvement is the lack of clarity in terms of how this solution is licensed. It is usually very complicated for customers to know how they are being charged for the licenses that they consume. In most of the ServiceNow solutions, this problem is persistent.

There might be some bias because we are ServiceNow partners and we're also Freshworks partners. We're not users. We're partners. We implement both solutions for customers.

We used cloud-based deployment.

We've been working with ServiceNow for quite some time.

I evaluated BMC.

Some of the customers are interested in Acquire when they think of ServiceNow.

My advice to others looking into implementing ServiceNow is for them to really know what the objective of the implementation is: what they're trying to fix and what problem they're trying to solve. They have to be very conscious of these things because if they are not, the solution may not be a good fit. It's going to be too big of a problem to solve. They need to have a high level of maturity to get everything they need from a platform like ServiceNow.

I'm rating this solution a nine out of ten.

Our company uses the solution as our in-house ticketing tool, for level one and level two automations, and for our help desk. 

The implementation is very straightforward for our technical team.

The solution is interactive and flexible so engineers find it much easier to work with than other tools.

The adaptability and end user training are very easy. 

A 360-degree view of the asset life cycle should be integrated with the service desk to provide better understanding and asset management.

I have been using the solution for ten years. 

The solution is very stable and do not have stability issues when applying upgrades or bug fixes. 

The stability is rated a nine out of ten. 

The solution is scalable and we've never had any issues. The solution is mostly for medium-sized or enterprise-level companies. You can easily scale from 100 users to 1,000+ users. The licensing makes scaling easy. 

The scalability is rated a nine out of ten. 

If you have any issues with implementation, support is available to help. Technical support is rated a nine out of ten. 

Positive

The setup and implementation are very straightforward. We've never faced any issues with implementations or operability. 

A service desk technician with two or three years of experience will have no issues with setup or a vanilla installation. There is documentation for everything on the internet so there aren't any challenges. 

The solution offers both on-premises and cloud versions. On-premises has some limitations on the AI side. If you go with cloud-based, then you get many more features and cognitive support. 

We implement and manage the solution for customers. 

The price is much better than other products so pricing is rated an eight out of ten. 

Initially, we also used the solution for our service desk and managed users. There was some constraint on pricing and the solution didn't offer AI support, so we moved to Symphony Summit AI. Comparatively, both tools are now at the same level with little difference. 

Summit has to be installed on-premises or on Azure only. It is also very expensive, particularly for the AI part. You need a bunch of licenses on the asset and technician fronts. 

The solution can be installed anywhere including AWS or Google cloud. It is just a matter of spinning up a VM to have it installed. The solution keeps evolving and provides much more than what most SMB customers require. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

Clients use 4me for IT, Human Resources, and project management.

I am comfortable with their features. I like their request management as well as their project management.

They can do more with their asset and configuration.

It would be beneficial in the next release if they could make it more localized so that clients could brand it with their own colors. As things currently stand, you can only brand the service portal.

It would be fantastic if they could revisit the option to customize or allow clients to localize and brand the back office forms or background forms. Currently, we can only brand the customer portal.

We would like to be able to customize and brand the solution, or at least the majority of its features and dashboards, particularly those that will be used by a large number of people.

I have been implementing this solution for the client, for the past six weeks.

4me provides Software as a Service and gives you access to their private cloud.

4me is a stable solution.

The scalability of 4me is good.

Our client has approximately 250 IT, and HR users.

We had interaction with technical support through the reseller. The reseller deals directly with the OEM. The process is very fast, it's excellent.

I have also worked with BMC Helix ITSM.

If you don't want to do complex integrations and workflow automation, I believe 4me is the tool to use.

When compared to BMC Helix ITSM, the 4me setup is much simpler and less complicated.

I would rate them a four out of five.

It is easy to configure, and easy to deploy everything.

It is dependent on the client's access and the availability of resources. You should be able to finish it in two to three weeks.

4me has the best price. It is the most affordable because it is priced per month per user.

BMC Helix doesn't have it, and if you don't use your license, they usually don't reserve it for another month, you can use 4me to manipulate your licenses however you want.

4me has a flexible licensing model.

I would rate the pricing a three and a half out of five.

I am a user of this solution, as well as an integrator.

I would rate 4me an eight out of ten.

We are using Clarity SM mainly for managing IT tickets, such as incident requests, problems, and changes. There is a cloud version available, but we are not ready for this yet.

The most valuable fractures of Clarity SM are its ease of use and security. I have been highly satisfied. We've been able to integrate it with email and an SMS gateway for the purposes of notifications. That works very well.

I have been using Clarity SM for approximately 20 years.

The stability of Clarity SM is very stable.

Clarity SM is highly scalable.

We have approximately 400 analysts that log on to the system and make use of it. This includes both sides, from the customer and the service provider. We now have what we call self-service, it is for people who interact with the system for purposes of logging tickets using self-service. We have approximately 1,700 people using the self-service interface.

We are looking forward to onboarding more clients. We only have two clients but we would like one more.

I have used ServiceNow and BMC Helix previously.

The initial setup of Clarity SM is an area where Broadcom has improved. The previous versions had big problems but with the recent versions, it's very easy to start off the setup. Most of the tasks during the setup are automated, there's not much that you have to do to go through the initial setup. There are a lot of other utilities that you can use to draw data from other sources and import it into the system. Automation of tasks has made it much easier to do the initial deployment of the system.

The deployment of Clarity SM meets all of our expectations. 

We have a team of three that does the implementation and maintenance. There are two of us internally in the company and one additional person from outside that is from CA Technologies who has been assisting us to configure and other aspects.

There is a subscripted needed to use Clarity SM. The price of the solution could be less expensive. ServiceNow is less expensive and BMC Helix is priced similar to Clarity SM.

I would recommend this solution to others. They have improved the solution over the years and there are lots of new features coming out.

I rate Clarity SM an eight out of ten.