BMC FootPrints Service Core vs Zendesk comparison

BMC and Zendesk are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. BMC is ranked #32, while Zendesk is ranked #9 with an average rating of 7.2. BMC holds a 0.9% mindshare in HDS, compared to Zendesk’s 4.6% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Zendesk users who would recommend it.

BMC FootPrints Service Core

Read 10 BMC FootPrints Service Core reviews

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324 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Zendesk

Read 60 Zendesk reviews

3,045 Views
1,431 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

BMC FootPrints Service Core

Zendesk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

BMC FootPrints Service Core and Zendesk are service management solutions. BMC FootPrints is preferred for flexibility and customizability, while Zendesk has an advantage in features and overall satisfaction, justifying its pricing.

Features: BMC FootPrints Service Core offers extensive customization for workflows, automation, and a relational database for linking items. It provides detailed audit trails and history creation, benefiting organizations needing personalized setups. Zendesk provides advanced reporting tools, integration with third-party applications, and seamless chat and social media support. Its ticket management and multi-channel integrations deliver a comprehensive service experience.

Room for Improvement: BMC FootPrints could enhance its deployment process to reduce complexity and time consumption. Its user interface might require simplification for easier navigation. Additionally, technical support response times could be improved. Zendesk costs can be prohibitive for smaller organizations. Customization options might be limited without additional expenses, and some users find its reporting features complex to utilize fully.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BMC FootPrints Service Core involves a complex deployment needing considerable time for setup but allows thorough customization afterward. Zendesk ensures a streamlined deployment process with faster installation and ongoing support. Its setup is simplified, making the system easier to get up and running quickly.

Pricing and ROI: BMC FootPrints Service Core demands a significant initial investment, promising strong ROI through tailored solutions for complex needs. Zendesk has a higher ongoing cost but provides robust ROI by enhancing productivity and delivering efficient customer support. Both platforms have pricing models reflecting their strengths in adaptability and comprehensive features.

To learn more, read our detailed BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Zendesk

July 2025

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Helped 862,289 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

32nd

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

30th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zendesk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

9th

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

9th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (7th), CRM (21st), Sales Force Automation (9th), Reporting (16th), Knowledge Management Software (4th), Community Platforms (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of BMC FootPrints Service Core is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 4.6%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

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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JohanSkibdahl

CEO at Etcetera Networks

Automating customer support with advanced AI capabilities and seamless communication

Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls. It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. This intelligent tool can manage complex queries before users even realize they are interacting with a non-human. Additionally, we have integrated Zendesk with Datto and Klaviyo ( /products/klaviyo-reviews ), enhancing our workflows.

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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

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

"We have found the reports and the lockdown on a ticket valuable, so only one person can update issues."

"Having a one stop shop for linked assets and tickets has improved end user adoption and led to a reduction in phone/email tickets."

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

"Implemented system-wide process for approving and tracking "employee move" requests for over 15,000 employees."

"I have used Tier II BMC support a few times. They were very responsive and recreated my environment in their lab to support me."

"The discovery feature is very flexible."

"It is stable and its technical support is good and quick."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core pros

"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."

"The product offers very good management. It has a great ability to assign tickets based on content."

"The most valuable features of Zendesk Support are collaboration, reports, and a self-service portal. The customer and team can see all the information needed from the portal."

"Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls."

"I love how the tickets would auto-populate very quickly in Zendesk, especially when a call comes in."

"Its agility and simplicity are the most valuable features. This tool is very user-friendly."

"It is very easy to connect back and forth between the requester and the person fulfilling the ticket."

"One of the most valuable features is the ease of use. If you take the standalone product, it is so easy to use, but if you want a tailor-made Zendesk Guide, you can't do it yourself. However, you can use a template that already exists—they have a lot, and they're very cheap, around 300-400 euros—and use it on all your brands. It's a very easy product to use."

More Zendesk pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"Reporting could be improved along with the option to create more fine tuned reports and to create specific fields for each type of ticket."

"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."

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

More BMC FootPrints Service Core cons

"If I write an article, and I have a team of 30 people, and they all have a Zendesk account, when I write an article, I send them an email. "Hey guys, I just wrote this article. It's one of the most popular topics this month on which we are not covered. Please check it and make sure that you include it in your resolutions". The issue is, once I send it to those 30 people, and they open it, the next morning, that article is the most popular article."

"The dashboard could be better."

"They have something called Zendesk Explore, which isn't as good as what they had in place previously."

"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."

"One of the drawbacks of Zendesk is that it doesn't provide a secure way for us to send data. So, we usually use a secure SharePoint folder link. We put that in the Zendesk ticket so that the requester has a secure way of getting to their data."

"There is always a network issue with Zendesk. But we don’t know whether it is managed. The network issue is that when I call, it does not let us."

"There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier."

"Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."

More Zendesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"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."

"The price is very competitive."

"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."

"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

11%

Healthcare Company

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Zendesk Support?

I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?

Zendesk's pricing is reasonable. It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.

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What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?

There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier ( /products/zapier-reviews ). However, easier integration could enhance the usability. Multilingual ...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IT Service Management (ITSM)

June 2025

Download BMC FootPrints Service Core product report

Buyer's Guide

Zendesk

June 2025

Download Zendesk product report

Also Known As

FootPrints Service Core

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

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

Zendesk Support is intuitive, and it's built with support agents in mind. Everything they need lives in a single, dynamic help desk interface so it's easy to be productive and manage customer interactions.

Zendesk

Sample Customers

Cast & Crew

Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber

Buyer's Guide

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Zendesk

July 2025

Free Report: BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Zendesk

Find out what your peers are saying about BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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