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BMC FootPrints Service Core vs IFS Cloud Platform 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
34th
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
IFS Cloud Platform
Ranking in Help Desk Software
12th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
CRM (21st), Customer Experience Management (7th), Field Service Management (2nd), ERP (12th), Activity Based Costing Software (7th), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (2nd), Local Government CRM (9th), IT Asset Management (10th), License Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IFS Cloud Platform is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1765752 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
Brendan Fisher - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, customizable, and modern
IFS is a very large and complex software, and implementation of IFS can be challenging and may lead to a difficult lengthy project. It can take between 12 and 24 months in some cases to deploy. I have found that not all clients are fully aware of how big the task is that they're undertaking when they make a decision to move to software like this. Companies need to be more aware of the complexity of an ERP implementation project and while I fully recommend moving to IFS, it is not easy and does require business change when adopting an ERP solution. New features are a difficult ask - I work across multiple industries and everyone would probably choose a different feature. Maybe BIM in Construction or Customs link-ups for importers/exporters.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The discovery feature is very flexible."
"​Ability to auto-generate email messages, process email messages, and approvals."
"We have found the reports and the lockdown on a ticket valuable, so only one person can update issues."
"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."
"We can track issues easier and run reports on issues to see if there are patterns."
"It is stable and its technical support is good and quick."
"I have used Tier II BMC support a few times. They were very responsive and recreated my environment in their lab to support me."
"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."
"Some of the strengths are Enterprise Management Solutions and the series of Management solutions which is number one in Gartner's report and has been for the last five years."
"There tends not to be a massive weakness in the product itself, as weaknesses can quickly be resolved in the next patch or the next release."
"A high level of ERP can be handled in IFS."
"IFS Applications' best feature is the user-friendly interface that has a .NET Framework application in the front end and an Oracle database and WebLogic middleware."
"Having a young talented programmer, during the six years of use, we were able to save around 75 000 EUR preparing simple modifications using customization rather than ordering them in IFS / Partner."
"We could quickly understand what was going on and what the customer wanted to do."
"There are fewer fields on the user screen compared to other products. This makes the UI a little bit easier to understand."
"The main reason for the ERP project was to bring together our fourteen sites, which had until then worked in separate silos."
 

Cons

"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 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 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."
"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 mobile version of this product does not support asset management."
"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."
"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"The solution needs to improve its documentation and user-friendliness."
"Sometimes from the sales perspective, clients don't always fully understand how large a task or a project they're getting involved in when they decide, "We're going to switch across to IFS." They could probably do a little bit more, maybe around preparing people for these projects."
"There should be some improvements in the predefined templates in IFS Applications."
"We have upgraded to the latest version right now. We have issues with the quality. We tried to enroll in their Evergreen program which was meant to help us adopt any service update or anything that the tool’s providers come up with."
"The user interface can be improved. When you're clicking through the screens, there are some icons or symbols that really need updating and would be more useful and noticeable if they are aesthetically pleasing."
"I'm a business analyst, so I do a lot of customer-facing work. I take calls from businesses I have to troubleshoot. One thing that bugs me is the error messages you get from IFS. If I get an error message, I have to dig to find the cause because, often, the error message doesn't precisely describe the problem. It'll hint about where the problem lies, but you have to work to find the root cause. It doesn't help in my situation. You expect an error message to point to the field or what is causing the issue."
"Technical support could be improved."
"IFS uses Crystal Report mostly, which isn't too user-friendly. Developing reports isn't easy and requires a lot of dev time. Since SAP bought it, Crystal Report has become more complicated to use on IFS. You have a dashboard for reporting that is good, but it's incomplete. Most of our clients use Power BI or some additional tooling for BI."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."
"Our costs are well over $250,000."
"This solution has good pricing."
"Cost was on par with other service desk products, and well below Remedy, while still being a BMC product."
"Licensing is on an annual basis, with no additional costs."
"Compared to SAP, the pricing for IFS Applications was very affordable. People using the solution would find that it's worth the money."
"There's an additional yearly cost for support."
"The pricing of the solution may appear to be expensive for smaller companies with only tens of users; however, for larger and mid-size industrial companies, IFS is able to win deals and the pricing is competitive in the market."
"It is better to buy implementation services from IFS than from partners"
"I consider it to be a well-priced solution compared to other mid-range or high-end ERP solutions."
"IFS Applications are competitive in terms of pricing compared to other vendors, such as SAP, Oracle, and Epicor. They are generally cheaper, especially for licensing costs."
"There are varying license levels that you can purchase."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
13%
Educational Organization
9%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about IFS Applications?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten since it is an extremely scalable solution that can be used for various use cases with thousands of users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IFS Applications?
The product is reasonably priced. The costs are justified by the value provided, considering the comprehensive features and minimal need for customization. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with IFS Applications?
I am not able to recall much about batch. Documentation-wise, they need more. There is not much available online, and the documentation availability is on the lower side compared to other products,...
 

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core
IFS Applications, Assyst, IFS Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cast & Crew
China Airlines, Electrolux Group, Babcock, Cimcorp, Sky, Multiplex, Veolia. 
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. IFS Cloud Platform and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
858,038 professionals have used our research since 2012.