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BMC FootPrints Service Core vs ServiceNow vs Zendesk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 1.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 15.8%, down from 24.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 4.8%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow15.8%
Zendesk4.8%
BMC FootPrints Service Core1.5%
Other77.9%
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…
MT
Manager of Security Engineering & Architecture at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Seamless data integration and advanced automation improve service delivery efficiency
I think that nothing needs to be improved with the product; you just need the user to commit and spend appropriate time to overcome that learning curve. Once that is done, the product itself is pretty wonderful. I've seen a very nicely built interface with ServiceNow, and I've also seen the ugliest version that feels outdated. ServiceNow does allow that team to exist. They should modernize their fonts and their layout, the UI friendliness. They did introduce AI, chatbots, and AI on the back end, so that's wonderful and extremely useful if you train it. If you don't train it, it's pretty useless. Assessing the impact of ServiceNow's automation on service delivery times is complicated. The engineers who operate on ServiceNow find it isn't straightforward because the data set is accessible by everybody. The problem is that understanding how to manage that data set requires an enormous amount of engineering skill set to run the product. I would not hand the key to the customer; I would highly recommend that ServiceNow take control of that. Instead of offering support for the software, they should offer administrative support for the software. They should provide professional service or some kind of support system that allows us to use their product at a faster pace. I'm sure they offer something, but it's often outrageously expensive, or they rely on another company to resell their product and offer professional service. It makes no sense in my opinion, and they should offer the team at the front to help customize the product to fit each company's needs, as every company has different demands and forms of submitting a request that need adjustment over time.
AmandaSanchez - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams
The ability to communicate on the Zendesk ticket through the actual user software, so TOPs, would have been helpful. Somehow seeing a user's ticket history within our app would have been beneficial. That is the only thing that I do not think existed at the time that might have been helpful. Some people struggled with Zendesk, but it was always easy enough to show them how to use it and what they were missing. The only times we really had people report concerns about it was when they did not understand that it could do that or how to use it in that way.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Having a one stop shop for linked assets and tickets has improved end user adoption and led to a reduction in phone/email tickets."
"We can track issues easier and run reports on issues to see if there are patterns."
"This product solidly handles incident management, problem management, and change management."
"We have found the reports and the lockdown on a ticket valuable, so only one person can update issues."
"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."
"Having a one stop shop for linked assets and tickets has improved end user adoption and led to a reduction in phone/email tickets."
"ServiceNow gives us a lot for free: workflows, organizational structures, service portal, forms, reporting, disaster recovery, and so on."
"It is user-friendly and simple to use."
"Creating a ticket is much simpler in this tool; that is one big advantage, and the simplicity and ease of use are much better."
"One feature of ServiceNow that is important is the workflow engine. From my perspective [as a consultant] the power to be able to structure processes, represent workforce management for organizations, and the visibility provided by the reporting are additional top features."
"ServiceNow has a much bigger offering in the sense that you've got new changes, you've got your problem ticket findings, you've got tracking for CIs and the CMDB database, and sitting on the backend trying to provide all that data for those tickets throughout the company, making it a lot easier as a one-stop shop for being able to actually come in and help your users while also helping your full infrastructure and backend."
"ServiceNow is a very powerful tool that can perform a lot of different functions."
"We always get good support."
"The product's integration functionality in the change management module has significantly improved efficiency in our organization."
"The outcome: Better workflows, more control, a better understanding of reports and numbers in general."
"Navigation and application is user friendly and can be self-taught from a user perspective."
"Users can create their own tags, and they have their own views which are very nicely organized so they can see what is happening at any given time."
"It is very easy to connect back and forth between the requester and the person fulfilling the ticket."
"Zendesk is a very good product."
"The JIRA integration has helped tremendously with bug tracking and timely resolution."
"If their price is acceptable, I would recommend using Zendesk to all companies whose clients and employees need a simple way of raising issues."
"Zendesk is a great product for managing and maintaining requests from users."
 

Cons

"It would be better if it were more user-friendly. The reporting part in the version we have is a little complicated."
"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"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 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 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."
"There are still a few odd issues in FootPrints 12.x, which are frustrating."
"The workflow should be made to be more user-friendly. It should also have more granular scalability."
"Licensing costs are very high."
"The solution’s pricing is expensive and could be improved."
"The major area for improvement for our needs would be monitoring the metrics of the times to acknowledge and resolve issues and escalations."
"I would like to see Advanced Intelligent Automation."
"They can maybe improve the area of agile project management. They do have user storyboards and other things, but we kind of lean on Jira for that work."
"Before implementing this solution, you should have the ITSM model in place for change management requests. That is a prerequisite because you cannot perform tasks without it."
"The ability to embed help information onto the screens."
"It's not very secure, it's web-based, and I prefer Remedy. Both the security and the web interface could be improved."
"Not that it was particularly difficult, but we needed direct assistance from Zendesk for the implementation."
"It wasn't easy to set up so we're only using a third of all of the features,"
"We work in print so being able to preview files attached and having larger files (larger than 7MB would be great) would be a welcomed improvement."
"I would like to see improvement in the "trigger" sections and "macros" as well."
"Many channel inquiries are not possible to collect into a single interface."
"There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier."
"The price of the solution should be reduced."
"Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution has good pricing."
"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."
"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution is priced for medium to enterprises sized businesses. However, it is expensive compared to competitors."
"We are happy with the pricing."
"The CapEx version is great."
"Getting the solution up and running is expensive."
"The cost is quite high."
"Some time ago it was expensive, but large companies have special contracts. It's enterprise prices, and we're talking about millions per year."
"I have found the solution very expensive."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
"The price is very competitive."
"Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes."
"We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."
"You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."
"There are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
20%
Performing Arts
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing 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 Business55
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise169
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
What do you like most about Zendesk Support?
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
From what I recall, the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive and that i...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
I wish there was a more easily dynamic tool. Currently, it is quite difficult because not all the tools are labeled. ...
 

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core
No data available
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

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    
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: March 2026.
885,789 professionals have used our research since 2012.