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BMC FootPrints Service Core vs ServiceNow 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
30th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
26th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow
Ranking in Help Desk Software
1st
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
231
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 1.6%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 14.2%, down from 23.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow14.2%
BMC FootPrints Service Core1.6%
Other84.2%
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…
Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Structured workflows have improved SLA compliance and now support prioritized incident handling
I think the licensing and pricing of ServiceNow is quite expensive compared to other tools. For large organizations, it is acceptable, but specifically for small and medium organizations to track incidents or change requests, ServiceNow is quite expensive. Sometimes performance can be slow when workflows and integrations are configured for complex tasks. For advanced customizations or advanced features which we rarely use, the documentation is not up to standard. The documentation needs to be improved for advanced customization features. However, the platform is stable overall and the features are quite good. The user experience and performance concerns I mentioned are areas I want to be improved. When many workflows and interactions are configured, performance is slow. For the features it is providing, it is quite expensive. If these performance features are improved, we can easily pay that price and get the return on investment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"I have used Tier II BMC support a few times. They were very responsive and recreated my environment in their lab to support me."
"Having a one stop shop for linked assets and tickets has improved end user adoption and led to a reduction in phone/email tickets."
"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 has helped the help desk team. We get our tickets in and are able to support our customers, the end-users, with this solution."
"Now all IT related issues, problems, changes and even projects are more controlled using Footprints."
"The discovery feature is very flexible."
"It is stable and its technical support is good and quick."
"You can scale the solution."
"Its integrated process data-model is a feature that's valuable for us."
"As a platform approach I would say I really like this vision of saying ServiceNow is an application platform now as a service where we can build any application we want to so we have some applications on the baseline like in sales management, like change management, now customer services, like security operation."
"ServiceNow is a cloud solution. That fact was very important for us, that it is not an on-prem solution, as it reduces our internal cost of support."
"If you're really wanting to understand the time and the effort and the amount of work that flows through your organization, utilizing ServiceNow can help you really build that infrastructure out by tracking incidents and then taking incidents to problems and making sure you have a changed infrastructure, really understand how much downtime you could have with an environment."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"ServiceNow has enabled us to rapidly deploy Application Managed Services for new clients, with the ability to configure, extend, and tailor our ITSM Platform to meet individual client needs."
"In financial management, this platform has the infrastructure allowing us to expand the way we want to, giving you many business rules and budget models to optimize your workflow, and integrating this solution with other platforms is extremely easy to do."
 

Cons

"The mobile version of this product does not support asset management."
"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."
"Sometimes it is difficult to make the application do exactly what you need."
"The pricing could be a little lower and the product should cover more iTel versions."
"We need more customizable reporting functionality."
"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"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 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."
"The solution could improve by being more stable."
"There should be greater integration with other enterprise applications. We're using Microsoft, Oracle, and other applications, and it would be good to have a greater integration on some of the immediate hiccups that you have with these services."
"I suggest making the cost more affordable for smaller companies."
"The customer service of the product right now isn't very good. It's an aspect they really need to improve."
"The Software Asset Management feature can be improved. We would like to see more features for the Software Asset Management functionality. Its price can also be better. It is currently more expensive than other solutions."
"Customer Service: 8/10 - the vendor used to be really good, but with the massive growth of product use it’s deteriorated. Technical Support: 4/10 - the vendor used to be really good, but with the massive growth of product use it’s deteriorated."
"Many of the things that we felt needed a little bit more shoring up was their CMBD product and their discovery, they seem to have covered that in the Helsinki release."
"Local solutions have lower costs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our costs are well over $250,000."
"Cost was on par with other service desk products, and well below Remedy, while still being a BMC product."
"This solution has good pricing."
"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."
"I would say it is moderately expensive, ranging from six to seven on a scale of ten."
"We are happy with the pricing."
"The setup cost is high compared to others, especially when the scope is not fixed."
"Certainly, from a product-platform perspective, the price is not too bad."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten. The pricing for ServiceNow is based on a SaaS platform with annual contracts. However, it may not offer much flexibility for adjusting usage in the short term."
"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
"It's sold as a less expensive solution, but it has to be highly modified. That's where you get into the cost."
"ServiceNow pricing is an art, not a science. The deal depends on how commercially savvy you are, which does make it something that is quite difficult to get right. It is most definitely an opportunity area for ServiceNow to improve and have more visibility around pricing of the different products within the platform."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business56
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise179
 

Questions from the Community

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Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?
The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...
Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?
Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow?
ServiceNow's pricing is fine. We have accounting for each headcount for ServiceNow, and the pricing is actually good.
 

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cast & Crew
AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow    
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. ServiceNow and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.