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BMC FootPrints Service Core vs BMC Helix ITSM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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

BMC FootPrints Service Core
Ranking in Help Desk Software
28th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
30th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
BMC Helix ITSM
Ranking in Help Desk Software
4th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 11.1%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

CW
Supports the convergence of ticket management, IT, and customer services
I would give this product a rating of 8 out of 10 because it's a good system and it meets most of our requirements. It still has a lot of space to improve because the service desk function is changing all the time. This solution has to continually be innovative. It should also generate more user-friendly reports utilizing a collaborative framework. Additionally, I would tell anyone looking at similar solutions to first figure out their most important requirements. Then compare their requirements with the function of the ITMS to ensure compatibility. While at the same time they should look ahead at future requirements such as the cloud configuration, along with other vendor capabilities before making a decision.
Fairoz Gadad - PeerSpot reviewer
Development team is quick to address bugs or shortcomings in their product
BMC's technical support team needs to improve. Right now, the problem over here is we are not getting the exact answers on time. Their engineers are mainly based in the US or Israel, and we get comprehensive dedicated support. Some of the Indian customer service representatives are also outstanding. Unfortunately, in the past six months or seven months, I've been getting brand-new engineers. Either they're not entirely aware of most cases, or they don't know how to troubleshoot further. So for any product to be stable and work correctly, BMC must ensure that customer service is excellent. Even though if your product is a hundred percent, we'll have problems marketing it to our customers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is good."
"I have used Tier II BMC support a few times. They were very responsive and recreated my environment in their lab to support me."
"We have found the reports and the lockdown on a ticket valuable, so only one person can update issues."
"It has helped the help desk team. We get our tickets in and are able to support our customers, the end-users, with this solution."
"It is stable and its technical support is good and quick."
"This product solidly handles incident management, problem management, and change management."
"We can track issues easier and run reports on issues to see if there are patterns."
"The discovery feature is very flexible."
"BMC offers excellent customer solutions, and they're quick to address bugs or shortcomings in their product."
"The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM are the ease to use and integration."
"The standards and the framework that it follows are most valuable. It has an ITIL and out-of-the-box framework."
"Initial, out-the-box setup was easy with no problems."
"Our Change Management and Incident Management​ processes have been greatly improved."
"Currently, the Service Catalog has the most value to it. Mainly, because we are able to offer IT functionality to non-IT people."
"Smart Reporting makes it easy to create/publish views for tables, so our customers can easily create their own reports."
"The solution has good capabilities for analytics."
 

Cons

"The mobile version of this product does not support asset management."
"It is pretty clunky and not very intuitive. Even though I have used it for many years, I don't think it is a very good ITSM platform in general. In the telecom space, a lot of telco providers use this solution, but from my perspective, it is not very user friendly. It is a bit more laborious. There are still too many human touchpoints. There can be a little bit more automation. It would also be good to integrate it with other tools. Integration is quite difficult, especially in the telco space."
"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"It would be better if it were more user-friendly. The reporting part in the version we have is a little complicated. It takes too long to build and report. It would also be better if there were another way to manage notifications."
"Hyphens are not allowed in the quick search bar. This has created a problem in our environment where we use hyphens in our asset names."
"We need more customizable reporting functionality. We could also use more collaboration of service desk tickets. This will allow for two departments to share the same information, track the progress of the total task scope no matter how complex the request is."
"Reporting could be improved along with the option to create more fine tuned reports and to create specific fields for each type of ticket."
"The workflow should be made to be more user-friendly. It should also have more granular scalability."
"Compared to ServiceNow, BMC Remedy is somewhat "closed." I can go to the ServiceNow website and learn everything there is to know about the product, and training is available. That really wasn't available with BMC Remedy."
"Provide documentation on the content of the REST API interfaces. Right now, it is pretty much non-existent."
"The initial setup of BMC Helix ITSM is complex because it has different integrations with other tools. Additionally, it needs to be integrated with the active directory and have different databases. The environment will dictate how difficult the process is."
"BMC Helix ITSM should improve its price."
"BMC Helix ITSM should have an easy-to-use user interface."
"The interface is somewhat dated as compared to technologies in use today."
"We found that there was numerous issues upgrading from 8.1 to 9.1 in that all our licenses were broken for almost a year and a half. We chased down a total of 14 hotfixes, patches, and service packs before things were finally resolved. During that time, said "fixes" also broke other things, so it was quite the sore spot with management for some time."
"The interface should be more user-friendly, and the customization should be easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."
"Cost was on par with other service desk products, and well below Remedy, while still being a BMC product."
"This solution has good pricing."
"Our costs are well over $250,000."
"It's a yearly subscription but there are a couple of customers who go for the monthly subscription."
"It is too expensive for a small business."
"While purchasing, try to negotiate on per user licensing costs, associated maintenance, and purchase 20% more then what you think you should have. Bulk is always cheaper."
"There are licenses to use this solution."
"It is not very expensive and not very cheap. It is somewhere in-between. Some of the features are more expensive. There are also additional costs. If you want to use most of the features, you need to pay more."
"We did not compare the price of BMC Helix ITSM to other vendors. However, it has a mid-range price."
"BMC Helix ITSM is a very cost-effective solution."
"The cost is relatively high, especially for the BMC Controller application. However, the expense is justified by the standard and reliable features it offers. This product's reputation in the market is strong, providing assurance in terms of data and other considerations."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
16%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What do you like most about BMC Helix ITSM?
If we consider major players like Ford or BMW, their core focus is manufacturing products like cars. To ensure smooth operations, any arising issues, be it security concerns or issues within depart...
What needs improvement with BMC Helix ITSM?
In User Group sessions held by BMC in India, I mentioned the challenges with vast documentation, making it difficult to find the right information quickly. The recent move to a new platform is bene...
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix ITSM?
I am currently working as a BMC Remedy developer. I have been working for over ten years on the BMC platform. My company uses BMC Helix ITSM for IT service management processes.
 

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core
Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cast & Crew
Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. BMC Helix ITSM and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.