BMC FootPrints Service Core vs Clarity SM comparison

BMC Helix and Broadcom are both solutions in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category. BMC Helix is ranked #31, while Broadcom is ranked #27. BMC Helix holds a 1.2% mindshare in ISM, compared to Broadcom’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of BMC Helix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

BMC FootPrints Service Core

Read 10 BMC FootPrints Service Core reviews

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377 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Clarity SM

Read 107 Clarity SM reviews

1,038 Views
789 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

BMC FootPrints Service Core

Clarity SM

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Clarity SM and BMC FootPrints Service Core are both formidable contenders in the service management software domain. BMC FootPrints Service Core holds a distinctive advantage with its extensive feature set that outweighs the higher costs, making it particularly appealing to businesses looking for robust capabilities.

Features: Clarity SM enhances efficiency with its excellent resource management, user-friendly integrations, and a secure environment. BMC FootPrints Service Core stands out with powerful automation, highly customizable workflows, and comprehensive incident management capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Clarity SM could benefit from enhanced reporting features, improved customization tools, and a wider range of plug-ins. BMC FootPrints Service Core might improve on ease of use, more streamlined deployment options, and better pricing flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Clarity SM offers a straightforward cloud deployment with responsive support ensuring rapid adaptation. BMC FootPrints Service Core, while involving a complex setup, provides valuable documentation and superior customer service, helpful for detailed implementations.

Pricing and ROI: Clarity SM is attractive for its competitive pricing and substantial ROI from lower setup and maintenance costs. BMC FootPrints Service Core, though pricier, offers a strong ROI through its expansive feature set and long-term operational benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM

September 2025

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Helped 869,566 peers since 2012

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

30th

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

31st

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Clarity SM

Ranking in Help Desk Software

25th

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

27th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

107

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Clarity SM is 1.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Clarity SM	1.2%
BMC FootPrints Service Core	1.2%
Other	97.6%

IT Service Management (ITSM)

Featured Reviews

reviewer1765752

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…

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Türker Kara

Application & Software Architect at Turkiye Finans Participation Bank

Quite good back-end architecture for end users but the API is very, very bad

Our company uses the solution for system, program, service request, change, and knowledge-based management. We perform CMD authorizations and use a lot of integrations for our in-house or third-party applications. We also use Salesforce automations and Microsoft orchestrations. We have about…

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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."

"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."

"The discovery feature is very flexible."

"We can track issues easier and run reports on issues to see if there are patterns."

"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."

"I think the most important feature is the ability to receive valuable ticket status support in a timely manner with little to no downtime interruptions."

"Ability to auto-generate email messages, process email messages, and approvals."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core pros

"Ability to write macros, which can in turn trigger some condition or could be conditioned to basically trigger notifications, the workflow desk, or web calls. It is huge benefit to customize it."

"The view it provides into who's doing the work."

"XFlow (Temperature) and Service Point together provided an extremely user-friendly and collaborative experience to the point of making it easy for all users of the product, whether end-users or analysts."

"It helps when you have an incident or performing a problem change management process."

"It has all our configurations. All our infrastructure configurations are on a single pane of glass to view, allowing for one single point of information."

"It's fairly easy to use, from a UI standpoint."

"It is easy to tell what needs fixing and the priority of things."

"Modules of integrated ITIL managers."

More Clarity SM pros

Cons

"The pricing could be a little lower and the product should cover more iTel versions."

"The mobile version of this product does not support asset management."

"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."

"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."

"The workflow should be made to be more user-friendly. It should also have more granular scalability."

"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."

"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."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core cons

"Diversifying notification methods with pop-ups or ready-made WhatsApp or Skype integration packages would be welcome."

"More user experience in the look and feel of the application. "

"The UI needs to be upgraded."

"Just little technical tweaks here and there. Like more options. For example "Organization." We wanted that to be available inside the change order, as well as the ticket and the request. And that's not available."

"I would like to see the API cleaned up."

"We went from 12.1 to 14, so there was a lot involved in it. The issues we had were migration issues, getting our information from one place to the next and making sure everything was as everyone needed."

"We need a mobile solution. We are not using any mobile functionality for the product, but we think that this necessary."

"The interface for the users is a bit old-fashioned and not user-friendly."

More Clarity SM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cost was on par with other service desk products, and well below Remedy, while still being a BMC product."

"Our costs are well over $250,000."

"This solution has good pricing."

"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."

"I think pricing of this model is suitable for growing corporations."

"The solution is quite reasonable compared to other solutions in the market."

"The pricing is based on a subscription model."

"I don't see anyone other than large companies being able to afford this system."

"Clarity offers a perpetual license. Customers purchase the license once and then pay for maintenance. CA provides a subscription model as well. Both models are available for our customers."

"It is a bit expensive, but you definitely get what you pay for. It is worth it!"

"Pricing is simple, as it’s per concurrent analysts."

"There is a subscripted needed to use Clarity SM. The price of the solution could be less expensive. ServiceNow is less expensive and BMC Helix is priced similar to Clarity SM."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Performing Arts

13%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	19
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	66

Comparisons

ServiceNow vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 43% of the time

Rezolve AI Platform vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 36% of the time

Zendesk vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 12% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs BMC FootPrints Service Core

Compared 10% of the time

More BMC FootPrints Service Core Competitors

JIRA Service Management vs Clarity SM

Compared 48% of the time

ServiceNow vs Clarity SM

Compared 39% of the time

Vision Helpdesk vs Clarity SM

Compared 14% of the time

More Clarity SM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IT Service Management (ITSM)

September 2025

Download BMC FootPrints Service Core product report

Buyer's Guide

Clarity SM

October 2025

Download Clarity SM product report

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core

CA Service Desk Manager, Clarity Service Management, CA Service Management, Unicenter Service Desk, CA SDM, CA Service Catalog, CA Business Service Insight

Overview

FootPrints Service Core integrates IT service and asset management for end-to-end business services, and it's easy to install, use, and support. With configurable capabilities that streamline service delivery, FootPrints improves customer satisfaction and IT's reputation with your business users.

BMC Helix

Service desk capabilities, an integral part of the CA Service Management solution, can enable you to deliver efficiencies in IT service management to business consumers, power users and decision makers. Mobility and collaborative self-service capabilities provide a modern user experience for accessing services and performing tasks, which can help drive user adoption, satisfaction and productivity.

Learn More: https://www.ca.com/us/products...

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Cast & Crew

Banco G&T Continental City of Perth, FEMSA, Fujitsu, Manpower, Muslim Commercial Bank - MCB, Punjab National Bank, Santa Clara County Social Services, Stefanini

Buyer's Guide

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM

September 2025

Free Report: BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Clarity SM

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