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Agiloft Service Desk Suite vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Agiloft Service Desk Suite
Ranking in Help Desk Software
48th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
30th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Agiloft Service Desk Suite is 0.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk1.2%
Agiloft Service Desk Suite0.6%
Other98.2%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

MG
Project Executive at GT Services LLC
Our customer service and productivity have increased in quality and quantity since using this product
Agiloft has a great support team to help the process along. They are affordable, friendly, and knowledgeable. The tech support team acts like walking encyclopedias. They know databases and programming. After all these years, we hardly need to speak to Agiloft anymore. However, they have great customer support. Every time we need something from them, they make our small troubles go away quickly.
KM
Computer System Engineer at Informatika d.d.
Has centralization and asset management features, and a helpful and knowledgeable technical support team
What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our customer service and productivity have increased in quality and quantity since using this product."
"This product paid for itself within the first six months of use, and after about six months, we started making a return on our investment at more than 300%."
"Because this product is infinitely customizable and easily developed, we are using it for other applications."
"In general, it's been pretty stable."
"Overall, it has helped us continuously improve our business processes."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility; it's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs."
"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me; it's IBM, a global company that supports this product, not something open source or something like that."
"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."
"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."
"The solution has been stable."
 

Cons

"We have found the documentation a bit confusing at times. This area could use some improvement."
"We have found the documentation a bit confusing at times. This area could use some improvement."
"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."
"The product is kind of clunky to use."
"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."
"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."
"Technical support can be slow in terms of resolving issues."
"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"After about six months, we started making a return on our investment at more than 300%."
"Agiloft has by far the best entry point for both cost and learning curve."
"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."
"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."
"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
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Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise3
 

Also Known As

No data available
SmartCloud Control Desk
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

EMC, ArcaTech Systems, Idera Pharmaceuticals, RBC, Affinity Service Group, Atrenta, DCG systems, ENKI, Hopkins County Board of Education, MVTS Technologies
St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about Agiloft Service Desk Suite vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.