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BMC Atrium CMDB vs Device42 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

BMC Atrium CMDB
Ranking in Configuration Management Databases
5th
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Device42
Ranking in Configuration Management Databases
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (9th), IP Address Management (IPAM) Tools (5th), Data Center Infrastructure Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Configuration Management Databases category, the mindshare of BMC Atrium CMDB is 10.0%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Device42 is 17.7%, up from 16.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Yousef Bayari - PeerSpot reviewer
Serves as a repository for storing configuration items, encompassing both physical and logical entities
The main feature is the relational model database, where you define relationships between CIs. Being able to establish CI relationships and building a service model is a key aspect of CMDB. Additionally, the traditional features of asset management, such as tracking assets through attributes, location, and ownership (both organizational and individual), are also part of it. On top of these, the CI model, which handles relationships and service models, is pivotal.
Krishna Gopal Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Good reporting and discovery capabilities, and helpful for understanding device dependencies and asset management
Its price needs to be improved. It is more expensive than some of the other tools out there. Their support is good, but their knowledge base should be better. There should be a common area where we can search and find solutions for our queries or issues. We don't always need to raise a ticket with the Device42 support team. Currently, if you want to ping devices, you need to log into Appliance Manager. This feature should be available on the Device42 side. You should be able to use the ping utility without logging into Appliance Manager. The features that are there in Appliance Manager should also be available on the main Device42 server so that you have more control on one screen. You don't need to switch to another portal, but it is not something critical.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution has improved our tracking."
"The main feature is the relational model database, where you define relationships between CIs. Being able to establish CI relationships and building a service model is a key aspect of CMDB."
"The most valuable features of BMC Atrium CMDB are its ease to build new classes. For example, let's say there are types of CIs or efforts that do not exist in BMC Atrium CMDB. You can create your own and their relationship to existing classes."
"Over the years, we have progressed to have close to a real-time up-to-date view into the assets in our environment."
"The rules functionality makes it easier to classify data for different groups."
"Atrium Integrator​ allows me to manage my data, with regular updates, etc. and integrate with multiple systems."
"It allows me to easily manage my data: Cleanse, load, and report on it."
"This solution makes it easy for us to access data, and seamlessly integrates with all ITSM as well as the monitoring parts."
"The solution has some very good relational capabilities that show us how certain devices relate to each other and how some of our environment actually works together."
"The most valuable feature was the ability to look up the different assets and see the different attributes that each one has, as well as being able to compare them to other assets."
"The import/export for bulk operations is a valuable and good feature."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution's agentless approach to asset discovery is very important for us because installing agents on physical or virtual devices is not easy in our company. We have to escalate these kinds of things to different levels of security. Not having to install agents makes it easy for us."
"It has agentless discovery; you don't need to put agents on your servers. You can open one or two ports to discover all your infrastructure."
"The most helpful feature in Device42 was the import feature, where you can seamlessly import your information into the configuration database manager."
"The Insights+ component is useful for us because it does business application mapping and helps us visualize it. It saves us time because we don't have to hunt for data."
 

Cons

"Recently, improvements have been more focused on the interface side."
"There could be a provision in the back end to ensure unique collections and avoid duplicate services."
"Looking for a more streamlined interface; one that matches the other parts of the BMC Remedy product line."
"We would like the service modelling functionality of this solution to be improved."
"I am just waiting for the new release with the new enhanced UI."
"BMC Atrium CMDB could improve if they had a cloud version and made the interface better."
"It would be nice for the agent to have an installer versus a single file across multiple systems."
"Since I was focused on deploying connectors and getting all the servers to be scanned, one of the biggest pains was when a job would fail, then the output (logging) was poor. For example, "Why did it fail?" In these cases, you get a generic error. It doesn't point you in the right direction and tell you why you got the error, which is really annoying. There have been times I asked, "Is there somewhere I can see a better log as to why is this failing?" That would be a really nice improvement."
"The breadth and depth of the solution's discovery of IT asset information means the system does most of the work, but they need to work on improving the database discovery part, especially for Oracle Exadata."
"It was hard to know which assets I'd already looked at because if I looked up another asset with a similar name, they would still pop up. I would have to make sure I was looking at the right asset. The search function should be improved."
"The resources table needs a few tweaks. We've raised a feature request for this. When you click on resources, it opens up the entire CMDB or the entire data stored in Device42. If that could be customizable, it would be good. We should be allowed to add our own columns to that by writing a script or something like that. There should be an option to add or limit whatever we want."
"When servers have two network adapters, automatically discovered will be only one network card because the other one is a backup. Device42 has some problems to find the other connection."
"The solution’s automatic IT asset discovery and inventory functionality functions pretty well. There could be some improvement if there were some automated scripts to get it off the ground. I know it takes a bit of effort to get all of various managed devices into one place. We have to go and change how they are managed and make sure they are all linking up correctly so they can be tracked in Device42. Some type of automated script for each to get over that initial activation."
"Configuring rPDUs in the data center for Device42 required us to add multiple discovery jobs. The rPDUs were referred to the ISPDUs and daisy-chained. They would automatically assign a unique SMP port, but Device42 didn't allow SMP ranges, so we had to create a discovery job for each rPDU individually. We submitted a feature request to mitigate that."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CMDB is more expensive than one of its competitors."
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"I am not involved in its pricing, but I have seen their plans during a discussion with the customer. For 500 servers, they were asking 50,000 USD. The cost of BMC Discovery was less than half. For the same thing, they were charging only 10,000 USD. Its pricing needs to be improved. As compared to other discovery tools, such as BMC Discovery and ServiceNow Discovery, its price is a little bit higher."
"We pay $100,000 per year."
"It's in the top-three most expensive solutions in terms of cost, but it has all the features that are needed."
"The problem with using other vendor, like BMC, is the pricing. The price is so horrible and nobody wants to pay this money."
"Functionality-wise, Device42 is on par with industry standards, but price-wise, the solution is expensive. I'm rating the pricing for the solution as eight out of ten."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing is $10,000. However, our license is now nearly full with devices. We need the next bigger license with 5,000 devices, which will cost us $19,000. We pay for a set of licenses, a maximum number of devices, and a maximum number of IP addresses. We have the smallest amount of features, which is enough for us at this time."
"The product cost is low. It is quite cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
13%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Atrium CMDB?
The main feature is the relational model database, where you define relationships between CIs. Being able to establish CI relationships and building a service model is a key aspect of CMDB.
What needs improvement with BMC Atrium CMDB?
Recently, improvements have been more focused on the interface side. The core code itself is stable. For instance, there's been a transition from using Flash on the interface to more modern externa...
What is your primary use case for BMC Atrium CMDB?
The Atrium CMDB is where you would store all your configuration items, whether they're physical or logical. For example, server PCs, routers, switches, and other network devices, as well as the sof...
What needs improvement with Device42?
The product must provide AI features. It would be very useful if I could create datasets or queries from an AI interface.
What is your primary use case for Device42?
I use the solution for physical assets management, IT management, and application dependency mapping.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Atrium CMDB
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield
Computershare, Concur, Doosan, Fitch Ratings Inc., Fujitsu, HomeAway, Jasper Wireless, Mercedes-Benz, Square, Twitch, UCSB, Zayo Group Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Atrium CMDB vs. Device42 and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.