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BMC FootPrints Service Core vs Cherwell Service Management 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
29th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
29th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cherwell Service Management
Ranking in Help Desk Software
27th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
27th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.6%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cherwell Service Management1.6%
BMC FootPrints Service Core1.3%
Other97.1%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1765752 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
A flexible, comprehensive, integrated IT service and asset management platform with good technical support
We use BMC FootPrints Service Core to manage network issues, infrastructure issues, software issues, and ERP. We also use it to manage our facility. So, we do some work orders and also use it as an extra ticketing system Technical support is good. It would be better if it were more…
Thobile Moeketsi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Sasria SOC Ltd.
Having everything in one location has significantly improved our efficiency and reporting
We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges. Even though it uses our Windows login, we still have to be on VPN. The product should be able to log tickets directly from system to system. We haven't got there yet and I'm not sure it's possible but it would determine the product's capability to integrate with other systems.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"​Ability to auto-generate email messages, process email messages, and approvals."
"This product solidly handles incident management, problem management, and change management."
"I have used Tier II BMC support a few times. They were very responsive and recreated my environment in their lab to support me."
"Implemented system-wide process for approving and tracking "employee move" requests for over 15,000 employees."
"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."
"I like the fact that FootPrints is a relational database, so every item in the database can be linked to another. This helps create history and audit trails for each CI."
"It is stable and its technical support is good and quick."
"The discovery feature is very flexible."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable. It is also pretty stable, and it can be as scalable as you want."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
 

Cons

"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."
"Reporting could be improved along with the option to create more fine tuned reports and to create specific fields for each type of ticket."
"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."
"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."
"The workflow should be made to be more user-friendly. It should also have more granular scalability."
"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."
"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"The pricing could be a little lower and the product should cover more iTel versions."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly. The shopping cart experience is also terrible - you submit and go straight to the cart, you can't continue shopping or see your overall cost."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our costs are well over $250,000."
"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."
"This solution has good pricing."
"Cost was on par with other service desk products, and well below Remedy, while still being a BMC product."
"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
16%
Energy/Utilities Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
No data available
 

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cast & Crew
Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Cherwell Service Management and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.