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BMC FootPrints Service Core vs Zendesk 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
Zendesk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
3rd
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (3rd), CRM (9th), Reporting (11th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), AI Customer Support (7th), AI IT Support (5th)
 

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 Zendesk is 4.9%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zendesk4.9%
BMC FootPrints Service Core1.6%
Other93.5%
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…
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

"Now all IT related issues, problems, changes and even projects are more controlled using Footprints."
"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."
"Implemented system-wide process for approving and tracking "employee move" requests for over 15,000 employees."
"The discovery feature is very flexible."
"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 have used Tier II BMC support a few times. They were very responsive and recreated my environment in their lab to support me."
"This is certainly a solution that I recommend for big enterprise."
"Technical support is good."
"Zendesk might seem a bit pricey at first, but once you get down to what value Zendesk can provide your company - both in terms of saved working hours, happier customers and CX data from multiple channels, it's well worth it!"
"We used to spend two to three working days to solve around 100 tickets and after we used Zendesk the turnaround time has been improved approximately 50%."
"One of the most valuable features is that Zendesk gives you a lot of configurability, and a lot of leeway in terms of customizing the look and theme. Zendesk offers you the facility to design your own landing page, as well as the look and feel of the entire knowledge base. At the same time, they offer themes that you can simply purchase and implement. Either way, it can really be turned into the right look and feel of the knowledge base required by our company, which is very important—if you have a bland-looking page, most of the time, people will lose interest. Zendesk also allows you to test the customizations before you publish it. It gives you a sandbox location where you can test everything new that you're trying to create and publish, which is very interesting."
"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."
"Zendesk Support has a lot of good APIs."
"We loved the notifications and the way to build custom views for a specific user's open tickets and to see how long they have been open, how long it was since the last request."
"The product offers very good management. It has a great ability to assign tickets based on content."
"Just buy it."
 

Cons

"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."
"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"It would be better if it were more user-friendly. The reporting part in the version we have is a little complicated."
"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."
"There are still a few odd issues in FootPrints 12.x, which are frustrating."
"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 needs to improve in terms of its flexibility, price, and installation."
"They have something called Zendesk Explore, which isn't as good as what they had in place previously."
"It is easy to use, however, it is not quite as powerful as many other ticketing systems out there."
"We have been quite frustrated lately with Zendesk, to the point where we are actually considering switching to different software that is more intuitive and better organized."
"The stability was a problem as our help desk grew. The product would need work on its stability (system hangs) and being able to handle larger groups."
"I would like to see the ability to merge between companies/teams."
"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."
"We had to modify extensively the reporting features to be meaningful to our business."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The price is very competitive."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
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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
8%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
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 Business36
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 is what prohibited us from expanding usage of it into more users and using more o...
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. A feature that would be beneficial is if hovering over an icon would tell you wh...
What is your primary use case for Zendesk Support?
I have been using Zendesk for approximately five years now. I use Zendesk for keeping track of emails and customer tickets. Whenever a customer has issues or questions about our product, they email...
 

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cast & Crew
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.