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Adobe ColdFusion vs ServiceNow Now Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 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
7.4
Adobe ColdFusion boosts development speed by 20-30%, reducing errors and cutting manual processing time by 35-40%.
Sentiment score
6.4
Larger enterprises see ROI from ServiceNow via enhanced performance and AI features, but smaller companies may struggle with costs.
Manual processing time was reduced roughly by 35 to 40% with fewer errors and less work.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Adobe ColdFusion support is praised for responsive technical assistance, licensing help, and clear guidance, despite variable response times.
Sentiment score
7.2
ServiceNow Now Platform's support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, particularly at higher levels, with ratings between seven to ten.
The technical team also helped us towards the relevant documentation and provided step-by-step assistance whenever needed.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
They are very good and prompt and quite knowledgeable about the internals of ServiceNow Now Platform.
Senior Analyst at DXC Technology
They have enough knowledge to say the right things.
Associate director at Accenture
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Adobe ColdFusion efficiently scales enterprise web applications, excelling in performance and stability for high-demand, large-scale environments.
Sentiment score
7.8
ServiceNow Now Platform excels in scalability, customization, and integration, efficiently supporting large-scale, cloud-based business environments.
Adobe ColdFusion is very scalable, and I have found it easy to scale as our needs have grown.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Users can build and modify the platform according to their needs.
Associate Director at KPMG India
You can have thousands of users using the platform very efficiently.
Senior Analyst at DXC Technology
It is easily scalable and very powerful in this direction.
Product Owner at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Adobe ColdFusion is stable and reliable for enterprises, excelling in backend processing and integrations; support is effective but pricey.
Sentiment score
8.1
ServiceNow Now Platform is reliable with high availability, seamless critical app handling, and improved cloud performance, despite occasional upgrade issues.
It supports load balancing, clustering, and high availability.
SDE 1 at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
We run several business-critical applications on it, and there are few issues that we encounter.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Overall, it achieves a 99.99% SLA on availability.
Senior Analyst at DXC Technology
I haven't had any situations where it would be unavailable for our calls, so I don't have complaints there.
Product Owner at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
ServiceNow Now Platform has improved it since then.
Assistant Manager at Wipro Limited
 

Room For Improvement

Adobe ColdFusion needs modernization in tooling, UI, documentation, and enhanced support for modern use cases and third-party connectivity.
ServiceNow users face challenges with its complex licensing, unintuitive interface, integration, AI features, customization, and low-code support.
More real-world examples, architectural guidance, and migration playbooks for modern use cases such as microservices or containerized deployments would be very helpful.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Historical data isn't as easily available as expected and it requires buying additional licenses for more features.
Senior IT consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
There are many areas where ServiceNow leverages AI or machine learning to enhance the features.
Senior Analyst at DXC Technology
It lacks support for rollbacks in case of complex customer processes.
Associate Director at KPMG India
 

Setup Cost

Adobe ColdFusion offers enterprise-level licensing, praised for its effectiveness despite higher costs compared to open-source alternatives like Lucee.
ServiceNow's high licensing costs are offset by valuable functionalities, offering a good return on investment for organizations.
It is positioned more towards the enterprise market, so it's not the lowest-cost option compared to some open-source alternatives.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
ServiceNow Now Platform is an expensive product.
Senior IT consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
ServiceNow Now Platform falls within the more expensive tier of a product.
Product Owner at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Valuable Features

Adobe ColdFusion offers rapid development, easy integration, robust security, and a developer-friendly ecosystem for efficient data-driven applications.
ServiceNow Now Platform offers incident management, automation, integration, low-code development, AI enhancements, and custom solutions for IT service management.
Adobe ColdFusion makes it very easy to connect to a database, execute queries, and handle data with minimal boilerplate code.
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Adobe ColdFusion reduces development cost, with less boilerplate code compared to Java or .NET.
SDE 1 at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most valuable features are the ease of use, stability, and the ability to change or upgrade seamlessly.
Senior IT consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The text-to-code feature is particularly useful for turning natural language instructions into recognizable code on the ServiceNow platform, aiding both implementation teams and customers.
Associate Director at KPMG India
It is extremely powerful and very much customizable, which allows for quick building of solutions around it.
Product Owner at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Adobe ColdFusion
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
23rd
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
22nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow Now Platform
Ranking in Rapid Application Development Software
14th
Ranking in Low-Code Development Platforms
9th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No-Code Development Platforms (3rd), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Rapid Application Development Software category, the mindshare of Adobe ColdFusion is 1.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Now Platform is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Rapid Application Development Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow Now Platform2.1%
Adobe ColdFusion1.6%
Other96.3%
Rapid Application Development Software
 

Featured Reviews

OA
SDE at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Rapid development has improved enterprise workflows but still needs a more modern ecosystem
One of the best features of Adobe ColdFusion in my experience is how quickly I can develop and deploy applications. The rapid development capabilities really stand out, especially the built-in tags and functions that simplify database interaction, form handling, and API creation. It allows me to focus more on business logic rather than focusing on boilerplate code. I also find the debugging and logging tools helpful, such as being able to trace errors and monitor performance directly from the administrator. It basically speeds up troubleshooting significantly. If I had to choose one feature of Adobe ColdFusion that saves me the most time or reduces my workload the most, I would say the rapid development capabilities, especially the built-in tags and database integration features. That has saved me the most time because Adobe ColdFusion makes it very easy to connect to a database, execute queries, and handle data with minimal boilerplate code. Overall, it allows me to spend more time focusing on optimizing logic and improving user experience rather than dealing with infrastructure and repetitive setup tasks. One additional feature of Adobe ColdFusion that I can mention is the security capabilities. Adobe ColdFusion provides helpful tools for securing applications, such as role-based access control, session management, and built-in protections against vulnerabilities like CSRF and XSS. This feature basically reduces the amount of custom security code that we have to write.
Vishal Savajiani - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Analyst at DXC Technology
Low-code workflows have transformed how we automate processes and build enterprise apps
First and foremost, ServiceNow Now Platform allows us to do a low-code or no-code platform, which is the wonderful first feature. On top of that, if you want to do some customization along with the low-code and no-code, you can do it. Beyond that, if you write a full-fledged customized code and make your functionality, you can do it. Workflow is there, and we can automate our workflows. Flow is there as an option. Apart from workflow and flow, we have many business rules and script includes. These are all the technical components and features of ServiceNow Now Platform that allow us to achieve our objective. ServiceNow Now Platform offers a very easy feature that we call workflow or flow. Using workflow or flow, we can customize industry workflows. The development on that flow is very simple, and you can use drag and drop functionality. If you want to do some scripting, you can do it. This is an awesome feature of ServiceNow Now Platform that allows us to develop or automate any flow in quick time. Internally, ServiceNow Now Platform uses a lot of AI features and machine learning features. This makes it more wonderful. AI and machine learning are the core of ServiceNow Now Platform, and they are using it heavily. It is making a lot of impact on deliverables. You can develop anything whatever you want on ServiceNow Now Platform. If you understand ServiceNow Now Platform capabilities, you can develop a full-fledged application on ServiceNow Now Platform easily. You don't have to write scratch code or do any database operations. You just need to create tables and forms, which are very easy to develop if you are familiar with ServiceNow. Everything is on one platform, so it is a single source of data that you can find on ServiceNow itself for the overall enterprise. ServiceNow Now Platform offers a reporting feature very well. Along with the reporting, they are offering workspace and dashboard. All these UI interfaces you can use to extract precise information for your customer. This is really helping the customer make decisions with the precise and versatile reports. You can have a list report view, a graph report view, or a pie chart. All these features can be developed quickly and used in ServiceNow. This is where ServiceNow Now Platform makes a lot of difference.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Adobe ColdFusion?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Adobe ColdFusion has been good. It is positioned more towards the enterprise market, so it's not the lowest-cost option compared to some op...
What needs improvement with Adobe ColdFusion?
Overall, Adobe ColdFusion is a good product, but one area in modernization of the ecosystem can be improved. Compared to some newer platforms, the community is smaller, and there are few modern thi...
What is your primary use case for Adobe ColdFusion?
My main use case for Adobe ColdFusion is developing and maintaining enterprise web applications. Most of my work involves building backend business logic, creating and consuming APIs, and integrati...
What do you like most about ServiceNow Now Platform?
The integration with other tools is pretty good.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Now Platform?
I do see some negative sides and room for improvement. I think there may be some integration with AI and a smart way of reporting, reporting mechanisms, and automation mechanisms on the inputs from...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Inspirus, Promisan, Webapper, Giva, Frontech Solutions Inc, Digicon, ITX Corp, Wall Street Magnate, SimulTV, ten24 Digital Solutions, Prospective Medical Data International Inc, Alcatel-Lucent
experian, beachbody, health partners
Find out what your peers are saying about Adobe ColdFusion vs. ServiceNow Now Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.